June 11, 2024

Everybody from Ayanna Pressley to the Republican-founded Lincoln Project to my group chat seems to be talking about Project 2025. 

But what is it? 

The Heritage Foundation, a 51-year-old conservative think tank unveiled Project 2025 as a blueprint for a conservative federal government administration under the scenario that a Republican president (read: Donald Trump) wins the next election and takes office in January 2025.

The plan, part of the "mandate for leadership" that Heritage has published since 1980 when Ronald Regan launched his presidential candidacy in Neshoba County, Mississippi, focuses on creating a comprehensive strategy that includes policy reform, personnel recruitment, training, and a 180-day action plan for said next conservative president. 

According to authors of the 900-page document outlining the project, it seeks to address concerns of so-called administrative sabotage by the "deep state" and to end public funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which supports National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Corporation. 

Advocates argue that taxpayers should not be compelled to fund media outlets that may not align with their views, while critics fear the project could consolidate excessive power in the executive branch, undermining democratic principles. 

Let's talk about it.

'Sinful and tyrannical'

Last fall, an article appeared in the Washington Examiner under the headline, "The Left Is Right To Fear Our Plan To Gut the Federal Bureaucracy." In it, a Heritage Foundation fellow points to a 1779 quote from Thomas Jefferson, who sired children with an enslaved woman he owned and served as America's third president, to bolster the plan's underlying theory. 

"To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagations of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical,” the quote goes, although Jefferson was actually arguing that men should not be compelled to give money to churches. Still, the project, which rests on four main pillars and takes aim at several key policy areas. 

Here's a rundown of just some of them:

Woeful words

Project 2025 proposes eliminating a number of words and phrases disliked by conservatives from policy and legislation, past and present. According to the text of the project: "The next conservative President must make the institutions of American civil society hard targets for woke culture warriors. This starts with deleting the terms sexual orientation and gender identity (“SOGI”), diversity, equity, and inclusion (“DEI”), gender, gender equality, gender equity, gender awareness, gender-sensitive, abortion, reproductive health, reproductive rights, and any other term used to deprive Americans of their First Amendment rights out of every federal rule, agency regulation, contract, grant, regulation, and piece of legislation that exists."

Abortion

Language aside, the project takes aim at actual reproductive-health policy in federal law, regulations and funding, including by reinstating enforcement of the Comstock Act, which bans using US mail to send objectionable materials like porn and conservative groups are arguing in court should apply to abortion medication. The project would also prevent Medicaid from funding reproductive health care, defund Planned Parenthood and penalize abortion providers. It also eliminates CDC programs promoting abortion and shifts focus to "pro-life" research and repeals policies allowing abortions in certain circumstances at VA hospitals.

Education 

First and foremost, Project 2025 proposes extreme changes to America's education system, including eliminating the U.S. Department of Education. It would also abolish teachers unions and specifically targets the National Education Association, the nation's largest labor union. The project also calls for expanding school vouchers and education savings accounts to allow parents to opt out of public schools. 

Climate and environmental policy 

Project 2025 proposes to dismantle environmental protections and delay climate action, viewing environmentalism as harmful woke ideology. The plan, supported by several climate change-denying organizations and individuals, proposes eliminating key agencies and funding related to renewable energy. 

This includes cutting the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations, and the Loan Programs Office. It also calls for significant reductions at the Environmental Protection Agency by firing new hires and eliminating the environmental justice department, while reviving Trump-era policies and scrutinizing certain grant programs.

In response, a group of House Democrats have formed a task force to combat Project 2025. “If we’re trying to react to it and understand it in real time, it’s too late. ... We need to see it coming well in advance and prepare ourselves accordingly,” Democratic U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman of California told the Associated Press of The Stop Project 2025 Task Force.

Data points were made

The federal government is the largest employer in the U.S., meaning Project 2025 could bring sweeping changes to the American workforce for generations to come. 

But that's also kind of the point. 

Here are a few recent stats about federal government workers:

—The federal government employs roughly 3 million people, according to recent data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (FRED)

— The departments of defense, veterans affairs, homeland security and justice have the most full-time employees, nearly 1 million total

—The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which Project 2023 proposes to reform, is one of the smallest agencies, with fewer than 2,000 employees (FRED)

— In Washington, D.C., Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, New Mexico and Alaska, more than 20% of the workforce works for the feds (FRED)

— Of all federal government employees, 55.6% identify as men; 44.4% as women. Men also make up close to two-thirds of federal government employees at the senior level and are more likely to advance to senior executive levels (OPM)

—Just over 61% of the federal government workforce identifies as white, while 18.2% identifies as Black compared to representing 59.3% and 12.6% of the general population, respectively (USA Facts)

— Hispanic Americans are the most underrepresented group in the federal workforce, just under 10% even though they make up 19% of the U.S. population (USA Facts)

—Approximately 1.2 million federal workers are union members, the largest of which is the American Federation of Government Employees, which has 750,000 members

— The average federal government employee salary exceeds 80,000 in all 50 states. In Alabama, the average federal worker salary of $99,269 is only a hair less than in more populous states of Illinois, Colorado and California 

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