Project 2025

April 18, 2024

The Heritage Foundation has published new editions in its Mandate for Leadership series coinciding with each presidential election since 1981. Mandate for Leadership: A Conservative Promise is the ninth report in the series and was published in April 2023, earlier than any past releases. Heritage refers to the publication as a "policy bible."

Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts established Project 2025 in 2022 to provide the 2024 Republican presidential nominee with a personnel database and ideological framework, after civil servants refused to support Trump during his attempt to institute a Muslim travel ban, effort to install a new attorney general to assist him in his attempts to overturn the 2020 election, and calling for lethal force, saying "When the looting starts, the shooting starts" in relationship to George Floyd protesters.

In April 2023, the Heritage Foundation published a 920-page blueprint written by hundreds of conservatives, most prominently former Trump administration officials. Nearly half of the project's collaborating organizations have received dark money contributions from a network of fundraising groups linked to Leonard Leo, a major conservative donor and key figure in guiding the selection of Trump's federal judge nominees.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025

The latest addition of A Mandate for Leadership: A Conservative Promise is about Project 2025, a recommendation for the structure and staffing of the federal government, plus policies for every federal agency.

It's detailed.

While it’s far from a page-turner, it should be required reading for every potential voter before the November elections. If you think the 2017 to 2020 era was wonderful, you’ll love the ideas presented. It promises to turn back the clock, but with a plan and a lot more competence. If the thought of returning to that bygone era makes you cringe, reading the book may motivate you to vote, or do even more.

The plan begins by announcing a focus on four broad areas, that the authors say will define the future of the country under a Republican president:

1.        Restore the family as the centerpiece of American life and protect our children.

2.        Dismantle the administrative state and return self-governance to the American people.

3.        Defend our nation’s sovereignty, borders, and bounty against global threats.

4.        Secure our God-given individual rights to live freely what our Constitution calls “the Blessings of Liberty.”

On their face, the four goals may not seem too outrageous, but the details lead us to the same old right-wing stuff.

RESTORING THE FAMILY AS THE CENTERPIECE OF AMERICAN LIFE & PROTECT OUR CHILDREN

Restoring the family is a euphemism for ending abortion and pretending all of us are straight heterosexuals. Gender identity is to be removed from the federal vocabulary, along with gender equity, reproductive rights, and other similar words. A huge problem in our society, according to the report is the sexualization of our children. Pornography, one the major contributors to sexualization, should not have first amendment protection. Companies that distribute it, along with librarians and educators who purvey it, should be classed as sex offenders. Listing educators and librarians should give you some idea of the works that are considered pornography. If you need more help, look at the banned book list from Texas, included are some of the masterpieces of English literature and nearly anything that deals with gay and lesbian or racial issues.

Strong families must also be protected from public schools. Schools work for parents, not the other way around. School choice is the answer and should be available to everyone. The parent’s role as the primary educator of their children must protected. This last statement could only make sense to an adult who has never spent more than a few minutes in a public school, where teachers are charged with doing nearly everything for kids: Counseling, comforting, equipping, feeding, and ensuring that basic health care is available.

The subjects taught in schools are also a major concern, especially noted are the “Noxious tenets of critical race theory and gender ideology,” which should be eliminated from all curriculums. Lawmakers in Texas have been good enough to translate some of this to more understandable terms. Teachers are not allowed to teach things that might make students uncomfortable. Another way of thinking of it is that we can’t teach about any of the major problems that face us today or about any of the significant failures in our past.

DISMANTLE THE ADMINISTRATIVE STATE AND RETURN SELF-GOVERNANCE TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE

The second focus area is dismantling the administrative state. The goal is to shrink the federal government and reform it to make it more accountable. Some laudable goals are noted under this heading. The first is the dismal state of the federal budget process. Congress has not passed on time the budget bills the law requires since 1996. We always seem to be on the verge of a government default or shutdown. It should be done in an orderly and timely manner. It should also highlight the major polices that are now buried in the 1,000 pages of overall budget documents. The book doesn’t offer any solutions to this basic problem. I suggest that the job description of a member of congress should be re-written to make it clear that their role is to govern, rather than to score political points. If they took the job description to heart, it might move them to a more orderly process. It might also remove the tendency to use the budget and the debt ceiling as a cudgel to beat the opposition into submission.

Another reasonable point made in this section deals with the migration of federal power away from the congress to the executive. Since the depression, more and more legislative initiatives have originated in the executive. Since the Korean Conflict, and accelerating in this century, the power to make war has moved into the executive. Would a declaration of war, which the constitution requires, have changed the outcome in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, or several other places? Probably not, but it would have slowed the process and given passions a chance to cool. It would also have spread the burden of decisions to more shoulders, increasing support.

Legislative initiatives are more difficult. For example, how long would we have lingered in the Great Depression had FDR waited for congress to suggest any of the ideas that helped to bring it to an end? Its size and many of its rules make congress unwieldly when dealing with complex and urgent issues. Reducing or eliminating the executive role in initiating legislation for new policy ideas is a route to inaction at the federal level.

Another item under this heading is the growing power of the bureaucracy to make rules and issue guidance in the implementation of laws. The writers argue that congress is neglecting their responsibility when they enact broad laws with the requirement that rules be promulgated to implement the law. In other words, congress should pass laws so detailed that rules are not needed. This assumes that members of congress or their staffs have the expertise to enumerate the fine details of how a law should be implemented and that they could ever pass a bill so long and detailed that rules were not needed. Consider a far-reaching and complex bit of legislation such as the Clean Air Act. Would congress have the knowledge needed to specify how air quality is to be measured, what levels endanger health, what remediation would be appropriate, who should perform that remediation, and what the consequences of the failure to remunerate will be? Even if they had the ability to provide this level of detail, the resulting bill would be thousands of pages long with at least hundreds of points of potential disagreement. Given the problems that exist in passing even simple legislation, could such a bill ever pass? Finally, this complaint ignores the rulemaking process that allows input and oversight for the congress before a rule takes effect. If bureaucrats are running wild, why hasn’t congress corrected them?

The last complaint in this section is the supposed woke that's creeped into so many programs, especially foreign aid programs and the military. If a country does something as outrageous as making homosexuality a capital crime, should the USA simply ignore it and carry on business as usual? Not ignoring it is apparently part of the growing woke agenda. Similarly, given the military’s historic problems with sexual harassment and racial unease, isn’t some effort to change the culture warranted? 

DEFEND OUR NATION'S SOVEREIGNTY, BORDERS, & BOUNTY AGAINST GLOBAL THREATS

The third topic covers several items. I'm only commenting on two.

The first is protecting our borders. First, let’s be clear that we are talking about the Southern border. When you delve into the details, it’s obvious that the writers have little regard for the people who are attempting to enter the country across the Mexican border. Their prescription calls for:

• More barriers—physical and electronic, more detention capability—including the use of tents,

• Required participation of local governments in record sharing and immigrant detention

• Expedited removal—removal with little or no judicial process,

• Ability to close the border when a backlog of processing exists,

• Wait in Mexico and be preyed upon by criminal gangs,

• Explicit authority for state and local police to enforce immigration laws, and more.

No mention of the terrible conditions would-be immigrants are fleeing. No mention of our legal and moral responsibility to at least give asylum-seekers a chance to make their case. No recognition of the vital contribution that immigrants make to our economy. In short, their answer is to keep them out or throw them out.

The second topic worthy of comment is national defense. The authors see us as vulnerable. The army, navy, and air force are too small, too ill-equipped, and not appropriately focused. Military R&D and procurement are too slow. Our nuclear weapons are antiquated and too few. We must increase our spending on defense—even though we already spend more than all comparable states combined.

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.” Eisenhower

Two things bring them to this conclusion. The first is a fixation on China. In the writers’ view, China is the new mega-power with whom we are most likely to have war within the coming years. Then there is Russia. We must be prepared to deal with them as well. The result is the need to be prepared to wage two major wars simultaneously. We have forgotten the wisdom of another Republican president, Eisenhower. Perhaps his most famous words: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.” We cannot allow our strength to be defined only by military might. 

SECURE OUR GOD-GIVEN INDIVIDUAL RIGHT TO ENJOY THE "THE BLESSINGS OF LIBERTY

This section is a tribute to the wonders of free enterprise and a warning against socialism, communism, and fascism. The authors say that every country that has ever tried any of these “isms” has failed, the USSR, Cuba, North Korea, etc. Not once do they mention Canada, Scandinavia, or the countries of the European Union. All have strong elements of what conservatives like to call socialism: Universal health care, strong social safety nets, strong environmental laws, strong unions. They also have happier people who enjoy a longer life span and a higher standard of living.

THE GOOD AND THE BAD

Project 2025 has some good recommendations and some very bad ideas. They are summarized below.

Good

• Project 2025 correctly points to the need to strengthen families and protect our kids. Unfortunately, their recommendations will do nothing to fill the needs that exist.

o   Our schools need improvement—well trained and respected teachers, adequate counselors, better facilities, fewer guns. Banning books and criminalizing teachers and librarians won’t do it.

o   Families need to be strengthened, but tools and actions that might make a difference do not include attacking sexually diverse people or single mothers. Real actions to support childcare, reduce poverty, improve nutrition and health care, and reduce the number of people whose lives are interrupted by incarceration would help.

• The federal government does need some improvements. The budget process is a mess. The transparency in the passage of legislation is wanting. The procurement systems are in need of attention. The executive branch has taken too much power or been given too much power. Unfortunately, the report makes no recommendations that would improve any of these issues.

• The security of our borders should be improved, but only while respecting the rights and humanity of would-be immigrants.

Bad

• Bashing gay, lesbian, and trans people is wrong.

• School choice is a solution that has yet—after 30 years of searching—to find the problem it will solve.

• Increasing the defense budget is counterproductive.

• Further militarizing the border, giving more enforcement discretion to Homeland Security and the states, and further demonizing immigrants will not improve security.

• Labeling programs that help people to improve their lives as socialism or worse, and failing to recognize the advances that comparable countries have made with these subversive policies is dishonest.

• Increasing the number of “political” appointees while reducing the authority of professional staff will reduce the efficiency of the agencies and eliminate another guardrail.

FOR THE FUTURE

This blog page is only an introduction to Project 2025. Over the next several weeks I’ll dig deeper into several topics that cross departments and could basically change the federal government.