Project 2025 — Plan to Radically Reshape Our Government

Election, Issues

Project 2025 is the Republican plan for the first 180 days of an elected Republican president.
It removes the checks and balances in our 3 branches of  government.
The executive branch will have the most power.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UQ8EffOoS8&ab_channel=PBSNewsHour

How Will Project 2025 Affect You
and the Things You Care About Most?
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25 and me*

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how healthcare, reproductive rights, education, farmers,
veterans, unions, LGBTQ+, freedom of speech,
climate, environment and more will be affected.

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The Project 2025 Song!*

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MORE INFORMATION

The Project 2025 Presidential Transition Project is a far right effort to install a future anti-democratic presidential administration, through the ability to take swift executive action that would radically redefine the way our government operates, impacting society and undermine our economy. The Heritage Foundation and more than 100 organizations have joined together in this effort.

Plans for the project are detailed in a 900+ page policy guide, “Mandate for Leadership,” authored by former Trump administration officials and other extremists, providing a radical vision of unpopular policies for our nation and the detailing the strategies needed to implement it.

Agenda 47 is the Trump campaign’s version of Project 2025. The campaign website lists his platform’s objectives in broad terms, with no specifics for implementation. However, more specific information can be found on the website. Links are available throughout this article from Forbes What Is Agenda47? What To Know About Trump’s Policy Agenda If Elected As He Speaks At RNC.
Associated Press: Trump’s protests aside, his agenda has plenty of overlap with Project 2025

Trump Administration Record means that there is an historic record for his actions and policies. One of the biggest mysteries is why so many people believe the economy would fare better with him. The record shows that was not the case 2017 – 2020. Links to resources, listed by major issue topics.

► Give the office of President increased powers, undermining democracy
► Replacement of civil servants with party loyalists
► Transform the FBI into a political taskforce
► Restrict reproductive rights and access to reproductive healthcare
► Remove protection of the personal information of people who receive reproductive care
► Enable corporations to cut overtime pay, relax worker safety rules, allow workplace discrimination
► Undo Medicare’s new ability to negotiate lower prescription prices for seniors
► Limit which disabilities qualify veterans for benefits
► Roll back civil rights protections, including cutting diversity, equity, and inclusion-related (DEI)
▶ programs and LGBTQ+ rights in health care, education, and workplaces
► Restrict access to food assistance
► Eliminate the Head Start program
► Abolish the Department of Education
► Restrict safety nets for farmers to ‘unusual situations’
► Restrict the federal government’s mandate to combat climate change
► Disband the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
► Eliminate funding for key public transportation projects

For more details, see the next topic: Resources explaining the impact of Project 2025, for a list of videos and articles.

VIDEOS

PBS News Hour A look at the Project 2025 plan to reshape government and Trump’s links to its authors Jul 9, 2024 (Video 6 min.)

Democracy Docket The Dangers of Project 2025 Explained (Video, 15 min.)

ProPublica Project 2025 Private Training Video: The Federal Workforce (Video, 33 min.)
ProPublica and Documented obtained more than 14 hours of never-before-published videos from Project 2025’s Presidential Administration Academy, which are intended to train the next conservative administration’s political appointees “to be ready on day one.” The videos are being published as ProPublica obtains them.

House Oversight Committee Rep. Ro Khanna Questions Project 2025 co-author Jonathan Berry (Video, 5 min.)

Red Wine & Blue Heather Cox Richardson Talks Project 2025 (Video, 54 min.)

Rural Progress Summit Ruth Ben-Ghiat Discusses Project 2025 (Video, 45 min.)

ARTICLES

Democracy Docket What is Project 2025 And Why Is It Alarming?

Democracy Forward The People’s Guide to Project 2025 (Easy to follow, drills down into specifics, page numbers from this original 900 page document)

Voter’s of Tomorrow Gen Z’s Guide To Project 2025

Teen Vogue Project 2025: What Is It and How Would It Impact Gen Z and Millennials?

Civil Discourse With Joyce Vance Trump’s Project 2025; Project 2025 Columns Index

Media Matters A Guide to Project 2025

The Guardian The force behind Project 2025: Kevin Roberts has the roadmap for a second Trump term

Politico The anti-abortion plan ready for Trump on Day One

Forbes Project 2025 Is A Blueprint For Business Disaster

Media Matters Project 2025 leader The Heritage Foundation calls for Social Security cuts

CNBC Lower capital gains tax, cuts to food benefits: What Project 2025 could mean for your wallet in a Trump presidency

The Guardian Trump and Project 2025 are attacking the Department of Education. How might they reshape US schools?

ProPublica Trump Says He’ll Move Thousands of Federal Workers Out of Washington. Here’s What Happened the First Time He Tried.

NPR Project 2025’s director steps down, but the think tank says work will go on

Project 2025: How Popular Are The Policies? (Includes comparisons to Trump policy statements)

Also see Agenda47 — The Trump platform is essentially the same basic policy approach

Plans for the project are detailed in a 900+ page policy guide, “Mandate for Leadership,” authored by former Trump administration officials and other extremists. Donald Trump has recently denied any knowledge of the project in a July 5, 2024 Truth Social post: “I know nothing about Project 2025. I have no idea who is behind it.”
Resources:
Newsweek, Oct. 9, 2024 Donald Trump Says Project 2025 Author ‘Coming on Board’ If Elected

CNN, July 11, 2024, Trump claims not to know who is behind Project 2025. A CNN review found at least 140 people who worked for him are involved

MSNBC Trump denies knowledge of Project 2025, despite multiple connections to allies (Video, 10 min.)

Newsweek Ex-Trump Administration Officials Involved in Project 2025: Full List

Revolving Door Project Former Trump Officials Wrote 25 of the 30 Chapters in the Project 2025 Playbook

Authors of the Mandate for Leadership, by chapter, former Trump officials noted:
Chapter 1: White House Office, Rick Dearborn, former Trump White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Legislative, Intergovernmental Affairs and Implementation
Chapter 2: Executive Office of the President of the United States, Russ Vought, former Trump Director of the Office of Management and Budget
Chapter 3: Central Personnel Agencies: Donald Devine, Senior Scholar for “The Fund for American Studies” and adjunct scholar at The Heritage Foundation; Dennis Dean Kirk, former Trump Senior Advisor to the Chief Information Officer; and Paul Dans, former Trump Administration Chief of Staff at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management 
Chapter 4: Department of Defense, Christopher Miller, former Trump Administration Acting Secretary of Defense
Chapter 5: Department of Homeland Security, Ken Cuccinelli, former Trump Administration first as acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and then as the acting deputy secretary for the Department of Homeland Security. Currently National Chairman of the “Election Transparency Initiative”
Chapter 6: Department of State, Kiron K. Skinner, former Trump Administration Director of Policy Planning, US Department of State
Chapter 7: Intelligence Community, Dustin J. Carmack, former Trump Administration Chief of Staff to Director of National Intelligence
Chapter 8: U.S. Agency for Global Media, Mora Namdar. former Trump Administration Acting Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Consular Affairs; Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Mike Gonzalez, Senior Fellow at the Center for International Studies at The Heritage Foundation
Chapter 9: Agency for International Development, Max Primorac, former Trump Administration Acting Chief Operating Officer at the U.S. Agency for International Development
Chapter 10: Department of Agriculture, Daren Bakst, Director of the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Center for Energy and Environment (CEI is a non-profit libertarian think tank, advancing the principles of limited government)
Chapter 11: Department of Education, Lindsey M. Burke, Director of the Center for Education Policy at The Heritage Foundation Lindsey Burke
Chapter 12: Department of Energy and Related Commissions, Bernard L. McNamee, former Trump Administration Commissioner of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission from 2018 to 2020
Chapter 13: Environmental Protection Agency, Mandy M. Gunasekara, former Trump administration official at the Environmental Protection Agency
Chapter 14: Department of Health and Human Services, Roger Severino, former Trump administration director of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Civil Rights; appointed by Trump to the Council of the Administrative Conference of the United States days before President Biden’s inauguration
Chapter 15: Department of Housing and Urban Development, Benjamin S. Carson, Sr., MD, former Trump administration Secretary of Housing and Urban Development
Chapter 16: Department of the Interior, William Perry Pendley, former Trump administration acting director of the Bureau of Land Management from 2019 to 2021
Chapter 17: Department of Justice, Gene Hamilton, former Trump administration  lawyer and policymaker serving within the U.S. Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security. Played key roles in ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, creating the administration’s “zero tolerance” family separation policy, and in revoking the Temporary Protected Status of immigrants from Sudan and South Sudan.
Chapter 18: Department of Labor and Related Agencies, Jonathan Berry, former Trump administration acting Assistant Secretary for Policy at the U.S. Department of Labor
Chapter 19: Department of Transportation, Diana Furchtgott-Roth, former Trump administration acting assistant secretary for economic policy at the Department of the Treasury in 2018 and 2019
Chapter 20: Department of Veterans Affairs, Brooks D. Tucker, former Trump administration Acting Chief of Staff of the Department of. Veterans of Affairs
Chapter 21: Department of Commerce, Thomas F. Gilman, former Trump administration Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Secretary for Administration of the U.S. Department of Commerce
Chapter 22: Department of the Treasury, William L. Walton, former Trump administration 2016 transition team as co-head of economic issues for federal agencies, Stephen Moore, advisor to the 2016 Trump campaign, and David R. Burton, Senior Fellow in Economic Policy at Heritage Foundation
Chapter 23: Export-Import Bank, Veronique de Rugy, Senior Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and a nationally syndicated columnist, and Jennifer Hazelton, former Trump administration public affairs official in the State Department in 2017 and public affairs official at the Agency for International Development (USAID) in 2020 and 2021
Chapter 24: Federal Reserve, Paul Winfree, former Trump administration deputy assistant to the president for domestic policy, deputy director of the Domestic Policy Council, and director of budget policy (2017). Appointed by Trump to the Fullbright Foreign Scholarship Board in 2019.
Chapter 25: Small Business Administration, Karen Kerrigan, president & CEO of the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council (SBE Council)
Chapter 26: Trade, Peter Navarro, former Trump administration director of the National Trade Council in 201, director of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy from 2017 until 2021. He was also a close adviser to Trump, largely on trade. He also advised on the COVID-19 response and Trump’s false election fraud claims, and Kent Lassman, president and CEO of the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
Chapter 27: Securities and Exchange Commission, David R. Burton, Senior Fellow for Economic Policy in the Heritage Foundation; Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Robert Bowes former Trump administration  Senior Advisor To The Assistant Secretary Dept. of Housing and Urban Development and Held multiple other positions, including advising Stephen Miller
Chapter 28: Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr, former Trump administration official General Counsel of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), 2017-2017 and Current Commissioner of the FCC, 2017-present
Chapter 29: Federal Election Commission, Hans A. von Spakovsky, former Trump administration Member of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, 2017-2018
Chapter 30: Federal Trade Commission, Adam Candeub, former Trump administration Acting Assistant Secretary at the Department of Commerce, 2020-2020; Deputy Associate Attorney General, 2020-2021

► Immediately slash regulations
► Baseline tariffs on foreign goods (Note: the costs of tariffs are paid by purchasers of those goods, not the foreign government)
► Phase in tariffs and import restrictions to bring back production of all essential medicines to the US
(Note: executive orders issued by Trump in the final days of his administration were struck down in the courts.)
Newsweek Donald Trump Says Project 2025 Author ‘Coming on Board’ If Elected
Forbes What Is Agenda 47? What To Know About Trump’s Policy Agenda If Elected As He Speaks At RNC.
USA Today As Trump creates distance from Project 2025, conservative Agenda47 comes into focus
ProPublica Trump Says He’ll Move Thousands of Federal Workers Out of Washington. Here’s What Happened the First Time He Tried.
Washington Post Trump has unveiled an agenda of his own. He just doesn’t mention it much.
Baptist News Global You’ve heard of Project 2025? Now meet Agenda 47
Dasia Shade What is Agenda 47? | what you’re probably missing about Agenda 47 & Project 2025 (30 min. video, conversational style)
Candidate Website President Trump’s Plan to Save American Education and Give Power Back to Parents
(Note: these education proposals echo “Moms for Liberty” talking points.)
Forbes What is Agenda 47? What To Know About Trump’s Policy Agenda If Elected As He Speaks At RNC.
USA Today As Trump creates distance from Project 2025, conservative Agenda47 comes into focus
Washington Post Trump has unveiled an agenda of his own. He just doesn’t mention it much.
Baptist News Global You’ve heard of Project 2025? Now meet Agenda 47
Dasia Shade What is Agenda 47? | what you’re probably missing about Agenda 47 & Project 2025 (30 min. video, conversational style)
Candidate Website President Trump’s Plan to Save American Education and Give Power Back to Parents
(Note: these education proposals echo “Moms for Liberty” talking points.)

Pew Research: How America Changed During Donald Trump’s Presidency
Reuters Factbox: Donald Trump’s legacy – six policy takeaways

HEALTH CARE:
Kaiser Family Foundation President Trump’s Record on Health Care
Center on Budget Policies & Priorities The Trump Administration’s Health Care Sabotage

WOMEN’S RIGHTS:
Center for American Progress Women Have Paid the Price for Trump’s Regulatory Agenda
Global Justice Center Factsheet — Reproducing Patriarchy: How the Trump Administration has Undermined Women’s Access to Reproductive Health Care

ECONOMY:
Associated Press Many remember solid economy under Trump, but his record also full of tax cut hype, debt and disease
FactCheck.org Trump’s Final Numbers
Tariffs
Forbes Trump’s Tariffs Were Much More Damaging Than Thought
Brookings Institute Did Trump’s tariffs benefit American workers and national security?
Penn Live Tariffs were meant to help but Pa. farmers are hurting under Trump tariffs
Politico ‘Here’s your check’: Trump’s massive payouts to farmers will be hard to pull back
Council on Foreign Relations 92 Percent of Trump’s China Tariff Proceeds Has Gone to Bail Out Angry Farmers

CLIMATE AND ENVIRONMENT:
Brookings Institute What is the Trump administration’s track record on the environment?
New York Times The Trump Administration Rolled Back More Than 100 Environmental Rules. Here’s the Full List.

CIVIL RIGHTS:
The Leadership Conference Trump Administration Civil and Human Rights Rollbacks
Pro Publica Trump Administration Quietly Rolls Back Civil Rights Efforts Across Federal Government
Human Rights Watch Trump Administration Again Weakens LGBT Protections

VOTING RIGHTS:
Brennan Center for Justice Background on Trump’s ‘Voter Fraud’ Commission
CNN Trump administration has Voting Rights Act on life support
NPR Trump Push To Invalidate Votes In Heavily Black Cities Alarms Civil Rights Group
The Guardian Trump attacks and vote by mail: the top voting rights stories of 2020
Economic Policy Institute The Trump administration’s attacks on workplace union voting rights forewarned of the broader threats to voting rights in the upcoming election

CHALLENGING THE RESULTS OF THE 2020 ELECTION:
Campaign Legal Center Results of Lawsuits Regarding the 2020 Elections
WITF These Republicans did a deep dive into 2020 election lawsuits, including in Pa. Here’s why most of them failed
USA Today By the numbers: President Donald Trump’s failed efforts to overturn the election
Factcheck.org The Facts on Trump’s Post-Election Legal Challenges

VOTE FOR DEMOCRATS!
GO TO THE 2024 ELECTION PAGE
For a List of the Democratic Candidates on Your Ballot!

Project 2025 Deminar from PA State Committee via Zoom

Events, Issues, Lehigh County Dem Committee

July 15 at 6:30. Please join Lehigh County Democratic Committee on Zoom to hear a Deminar from PA State Committee on Project 2025. Project 2025 is Trump’s manifest for his takeover of the constitution and game plan for his 2nd term administration.

It was put together by the Heritage Foundation and over 100 other conservative groups as well as his operatives such as Steve Miller, Steve Bannon and his many other felons.

It is the most frightening document ever conceived and should put the fear of losing our American Freedoms, Rights and Democracy to a dictatorship!!! 

Please register HERE for the zoom link
(You will receive the link to the Deminar via email closer to the session)

Additional Articles and Videos about Project 2025

PA House passes bill to give counties more time to count mail ballots

Election, Issues, Uncategorized

“A House bill [HB 847] passed Wednesday in a party line vote would allow counties up to seven days before election day to open ballot envelopes and run ballots through scanning machines, though results would still be tabulated on the day of the election. Currently, counties cannot begin processing mail ballots until the morning of the election, which means counties with large numbers of mail ballots may need additional days to finish counting and report complete results.”

Read the full article in Spotlight, PA

This practical solution, that is in place in other states with mail ballot voting, makes election day less hectic for election workers. The sudden shift in totals, when mail ballots are added into the total results from the polling locations, creates the illusion that something peculiar is happening — helping to fuel election conspiracy rhetoric. Being able to pre-canvass would eliminate that perception.

Thirty-nine states and the Virgin Islands permit election officials to begin processing absentee/mail ballots prior to the election. Eight states and Washington, D.C., permit election officials to begin processing absentee/mail ballots on Election Day, but prior to the closing of the polls. Alabama, District of Columbia, Michigan, Mississippi, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, West Virginia and Wisconsin. Source: National Conference of State Legislatures

CONTACT YOUR STATE LEGISLATORS! Let them know you think this bill is important!
PA Senators
Nick Miller, PA Senate 14 Let him know you think this bill is important and should be passed, without amendments, before the November election.

Jarrett Coleman, PA Senate 16 Let him know you think this bill is important and should be passed, without amendments, before the November election.

PA Representatives
Zachary Mako, PA House 183 (Voted No on HB 847 ) Ask him why he voted no on a simple one-issue bill that would enable county officials to process ballots more efficiently and help eliminate doubts about election integrity.

Ryan E. Mackenzie, PA House 187 (Voted No on HB 847 ) Ask him why he voted no on a simple one-issue bill that would enable county officials to process ballots more efficiently and help eliminate doubts about election integrity.

Michael H. Schlossberg, PA House 132 (Voted Yes on HB 847 ) Thank him for voting yes on this sensible bill.

Biden’s Investing in America: Delivering for Pennsylvania

Biden Administration, Issues, Uncategorized

For decades, the U.S. exported jobs and imported products, while other countries surpassed us in critical sectors like infrastructure, clean energy, semiconductors, and biotechnology. Thanks to President Biden’s Investing in America Agenda that is changing. Since the President took office in 2021, companies have committed over $1.5 billion in private sector investments across Pennsylvania. These investments are creating good-paying jobs, including union jobs and jobs that don’t require a four-year degree in
industries that will boost U.S. competitiveness, rebuild infrastructure, strengthen supply chains, and help build a clean energy economy.

  • Unleashing a Private Investment Boom in Pennsylvania
  • Rebuilding Pennsylvania’s Infrastructure
  • Getting Pennsylvania Back to Work and Supporting Pennsylvania’s Small Businesses
  • Creating Clean-Energy Jobs and Combatting the Climate Crisis
  • Lowering Costs for Pennsylvania Families

■ READ THE FULL REPORT
■ Want to know more? Read this additional report:
Understanding the Economics of Investing in America: A Collection of Resources 

Biden Economic Initiatives in PADownload

Young Male Voters & Democratic Messaging

Issues, Uncategorized

This topic is a point of focus for ULDC. Here is a list of recommended articles. (Some may behind a paywall.)
Additional articles on the broader topic of youth voters will be added in the near future.

Politico: “Democrats Have a Man Problem. These Experts Have Ideas for Fixing It.”
How can Democrats counter GOP messaging on masculinity? Should they even want to? A roundtable with Democratic party insiders and experts.

Washington Post: “Men are lost. Here’s a map out of the wilderness,” Christine Emba.

The Atlantic : “THE WEAPONIZATION OF LONELINESS,” Hillary Rodham Clinton
To defend America against those who would exploit our social disconnection, we need to rebuild our communities.

Every Town for Gun Safety/Southern Poverty Law Center Report: “ Youth Attitudes on Guns”
Introduction and Executive Summary, including Key Findings

Full Report

Who to Blame for Our Supply Chain Problems

Issues

ULDC President Bob Elbich, Published 2/17/2022 Morning Call “Town Square”

Container ships at the Port of Savannah in Savannah, Ga., in September. Stephen B. Morton/AP
It is no great revelation when I state that the political and public policy discourse has deteriorated to dysfunctional word salads and vicious recriminations.

When I ran for public office, coming from a distinctly nonpolitical background, my guiding principle was to restore common sense to the dialogue. Therefore, it distresses me to see and hear all sorts of counterfactual and convoluted reasoning to rationalize why we are where we are as a society.

This theme can easily extend over many subjects, but I would like to provoke some reader introspection by focusing on a specific, timely issue from the perspective of many years of direct personal experiences.
These days, the narrative of choice for blame associated with our economic challenges centers on two words: supply chain.

Many people are blaming the federal administration for causing the shortages of goods and will want to exact punishment. I see and hear this narrative every day in the media: liberal, conservative, televised and print.

Nothing could be further from reality and common sense. In my career, I invested over 12 years working in large corporate manufacturing environments and over 35 years in small and startup manufacturing companies in the Lehigh Valley. I have seen at close range how the seeds of our supply chain issues were planted in the past.

Beginning in earnest in the 1970s, corporate management throughout the country turned their backs on our American workers and began to manufacture or buy cheaper products overseas. It was the lazy, easy path to higher profits and higher corporate salaries. Company executives’ personal incomes skyrocketed from 58 times the average worker in 1989 to more than 270 times the income of the average worker in 2018.

The trend also took jobs away from millions of hardworking Americans who were building a middle-class lifestyle and contributing to American prosperity. Little effort was made by these executives to find creative ways to keep the jobs here in America. Why bother when they could easily slash payroll costs and pocket much of the savings?

For years, things went swimmingly, except for those who lost good-paying jobs, while no one considered the extensive variety of risks that affect supply chains and would inevitably complicate our access to products made far from home.

The COVID-19 experience is only one manifestation of a supply chain built on multiple dimensions of potential failure. We are paying the price for such hubris.

As a small business owner, I was constantly encouraged to outsource our products to foreign sources for higher profits. The pressures were (and still are) enormous to simply offshore technology and skills and place the burden of supply on someone else. Instead, our team worked long and hard overcoming many challenges to keep manufacturing jobs in the Lehigh Valley. We wanted to supply our customers with quality products and swift response times without waiting and hoping for container ships to arrive.

Did other factors contribute to the corporate executives’ decisions to outsource products? The answer is yes, and therein lies the rub.

Besides being willing to sacrifice the American worker for stratospheric salaries, executives were also answering the free market demand for higher profits and cheaper products from anyone who wanted their 401(k) investments in these companies to grow as fast as possible and wanted to buy the cheapest products possible. After all, who among us does not look at our 401(k) or individual retirement account reports and search for the highest returns? And who among us, when shopping for products, does not look for the lowest-cost item, even though we know, deep in our hearts, that the quality is probably suspect and the service is nonexistent?

We Americans for these many years have been and still are complicit in and responsible for this journey to supply chain problems. As comic character Pogo stated in a parody of a famous quote, “We have met the enemy and he is us,” Not the federal government.

That, my friends, is the common sense of it.

Bob Elbich is a Lehigh County commissioner, a member of the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission and a retired manufacturing entrepreneur.