Let’s be honest. Project 2025 was never a possibility. But now that Donald Trump is set to be the 47th president, that list of policies could be set in motion, and it’s not looking good.
According to the official website, Project 2025 is a movement put together by 100 organizations set to “take down the Deep State” and “return the government to the people.”
The ideas for the movement came from a book titled, “Its Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise”, which offers policy suggestions including securing the U.S./Mexican border, cutting the growth of government spending, de-weaponizing the Federal Government, making the United States Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation more accountable, and much more.
One of the most controversial aspects of Project 2025 is its goal to “take down the Deep State.” This phrase is frequently used to suggest that certain government organizations wield too much power and act against the interests of the American people.
However, abolishing or drastically changing portions of the federal government, such as the DOJ and FBI, might seriously affect how these institutions maintain checks and balances.
The project states that lowering these authorities’ power will make them more accountable, but critics warn that it may reduce their ability to investigate crime and enforce laws impartially.
If implemented, Project 2025’s policies have the potential to significantly impact American’s daily lives in many ways.
For example, the drive to “secure the U.S.-Mexico border” may result in tougher immigration rules and higher deportations, affecting immigrant families and potentially straining towns that rely on immigrant labor.
Meanwhile, cuts to government spending may result in reduced financing for important programs such as healthcare, education, and infrastructure, which millions of Americans need.
By weakening federal agencies such as the DOJ and FBI, Project 2025 may lessen oversight of high-level corruption, making it easier for corporate and political interests to operate unchecked, which could harm public trust.
Furthermore, according to a Brookings article, another limiting factor is that some of Project 2025’s most substantive proposals probably wouldn’t be all that popular with Republicans either.
The article uses the sunsetting of the Title I program as an example:
“Project 2025 proposes to phase out federal spending on Title I over a 10-year period, with states left to decide whether and how to continue that funding. It justifies this with misleading suggestions that persistent test score gaps between wealthy and poor students indicate that investments like Title I funding aren’t paying off”.
This implies that the shutdown of Title I would be zoning out poor students, just because they are unable to gain access to certain materials. This would be a huge risk, as giving up on low-income students would undoubtedly make things worse.
Of course, the impact of moving Title I control from the federal to the state level will be determined by how states use their newly gained decision-making power.
Yet, given that numerous red states are among the lowest spenders on education and have cut programs like Summer EBT and Medicaid expansion it’s difficult to imagine that a change to state control would benefit low-income students.
There are many more policies that weren’t mentioned here, such as banning gender-affirming care and possibly throwing out the Department of Education. The book that was mentioned was about 900 pages long and goes into more detail.
There is one thing for sure, when Project 2025 is put into place, the entire country, left, right and center will feel its effects.
