The People’s Guide to Project 2025
Project 2025 is among the most profound threats to the American people.
We read Project 2025’s entire 900+ page “Mandate for Leadership” so that you don’t have to.
What we discovered was a systemic, ruthless plan to undermine the quality of life of millions of Americans, remove critical protections and dismantle programs for communities across the nation, and prioritize special interests and ideological extremism over people.
From attacking overtime pay, student loans, and reproductive rights, to allowing more discrimination, pollution, and price gouging, those behind Project 2025 are preparing to go to incredible lengths to create a country only for some, not for all of us.
If these plans are enacted, which Project 2025’s authors claim can happen without congressional approval, 4.3 million people could lose overtime protections, 40 million people could have their food assistance reduced, 220,000 American jobs could be lost, and much, much, more. The stakes are higher than ever for democracy and for people.
These threats aren’t hypothetical. These are their real plans.
The Heritage Foundation and the 100+ organizations that make up the Project 2025 Advisory Board have mapped out exactly how they will achieve their extreme ends. They aim to try and carry out many of the most troubling proposals through an anti-democratic president and political loyalists installed in the executive branch, without waiting for congressional action. And, while many of these plans are unlawful, winning in court is not guaranteed given that the same far-right movement that is behind Project 2025 has shaped our current court system.
To combat the threats posed by Project 2025, we have to first understand them.
What follows are some of the most dangerous proposals that make up Project 2025, specifically those that they plan to implement through federal agencies and a far-right executive branch.
The majority of Americans share the same values and priorities, but Project 2025 wants to push an extreme, out-of-touch agenda on all of us. By reading this guide and sharing it, we can begin to address these threats and go on offense towards building a bold, inclusive democracy for all people.
What is Project 2025?
The Project 2025 Presidential Transition Project is a well-funded (eight-figure) effort of the Heritage Foundation and more than 100 organizations to enable a future anti-democratic presidential administration to take swift, far-right action that would cut wages for working people, dismantle social safety net programs, reverse decades of progress for civil rights, redefine the way our society operates, and undermine our economy.
A central pillar of Project 2025 is the “Mandate for Leadership,” a 900+ page policy playbook authored by former Trump administration officials and other extremists that provides a radical vision for our nation and a roadmap to implement it.
Project 2025 Snapshot
Proposals from Project 2025, discussed in detail throughout this guide, that they claim could be implemented through executive branch action alone — so without new legislation — include:
- Cut overtime protections for 4.3 million workers
- Stop efforts to lower prescription drug prices
- Limit access to food assistance, which an average of more than 40 million people in 21.6 million households rely on monthly
- Eliminate the Head Start early education program, which serves over 1 million children annually
- Cut American Rescue Plan (ARP) programs that have created or saved 220,000 jobs
- Restrict access to medication abortion
- Push more of the 33 million people enrolled in Medicare towards Medicare Advantage and other worse, private options
- Expose the 368,000 children in foster care to risk of increased discrimination
- Deny students in 25 states and Washington, D.C. access to student loans because their state provides in-state tuition to undocumented immigrants
- Roll back civil rights protections across multiple fronts, including cutting diversity, equity, and inclusion-related (DEI) programs and LGBTQ+ rights in health care, education, and workplaces
Explore Project 2025's Plans:
The threats from Project 2025 do not end here.
This People’s Guide only begins to catalog the people and communities who would be harmed if a future presidential administration began to implement Project 2025’s proposals. Businesses and industry across the country could be harmed not just from the lack of data collection discussed above, but also from proposals to politicize the Federal Reserve or to restrict free trade. Our country’s national security itself, too, is threatened by proposals to concentrate military decisionmaking, further undermine our intelligence agencies, or promote isolationist policies.
We continue to analyze these policies and their harms to people, and expect to release updated versions of the People’s Guide with reports on the threats that would make it harder to run a business, put our security at risk, and more. Click here to sign up to receive the updated reports directly in your inbox.
We cannot let Project 2025 write the next chapter of our nation’s story.
To learn more about how we can confront the threats presented in this guide head-on and begin to build a bold, vibrant democracy for all people, visit democracyforward.org/join-2025.