Project 2025 Would Undermine Business Growth and Innovation
Project 2025 poses an extreme threat to the strength and stability of the American workforce and the American economy. By risking the health of American businesses and our workforce, Project 2025 threatens all of us who rely on a thriving, robust economy – including to protect our retirement investments, our children’s college funds, and to afford the cost of groceries.
That’s not all. Project 2025 also attacks the core tenets of our democracy. The backsliding of democracy has harmful consequences for people and communities, but it’s also bad for business. Globally, there is a strong correlation between economies that support human rights and democracy and conditions that are good for businesses to innovate, thrive, and flourish.
Simply put, democracy is the most important economic issue of them all – and Project 2025 is going after that, too.
Deny opportunities for qualified workers.
Project 2025 would limit immigration into the U.S., leaving critical sectors like farming and construction without enough workers.
Read More 1The first Trump administration imposed highly restrictive immigration policies – but Project 2025 wants to go even further. It proposes suspending or limiting who is eligible for H-2A and H-2B temporary worker visas, which are heavily relied on to fill jobs in the agricultural, construction, hospitality, and forestry sectors.
Project 2025 also seeks to terminate the legal status of 500,000 Dreamers. Without legal status, Dreamers will be unable to fill critical positions in the workforce. And Project 2025 also recommends drastically expanding a process called expedited removal, which allows low-level immigration officers to remove certain people from the U.S., sometimes without a hearing. That would shrink our workforce even further at a time when many industries are already struggling to hire.
From pages 138, 142, 145, and 611 of the Mandate for Leadership.
Weaken innovation and the American workforce by gutting public education.
A strong and qualified workforce depends on access to quality education. High quality education breeds business innovation and growth. Project 2025 would erode public education and diminish educational opportunity.
Read More 2Studies prove public education has a range of social and economic benefits. Project 2025 seeks to undermine access to quality education in the United States in significant ways. It would eliminate Title I, the $18 billion federal fund that supports schools with high populations of students coming from low-income backgrounds.
Project 2025 also advocates for eliminating the Department of Education, private models of education (through vouchers), and loosening accountability for federal funding for special education.
From pages 319 – 360 of the Mandate for Leadership.
Make it harder for businesses to attract and maintain a diverse workforce.
Greater diversity and inclusion in the workforce is good for business. So are anti-discrimination protections. Project 2025 will hinder businesses' ability to seek out a diverse workforce.
Read More 3Project 2025 takes issue with Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives across the board – including in the boardroom and in the break room. It proposes ending the collection of data on discrimination by race and gender, making it harder to find ongoing patterns of prejudice. It would strip the words “diversity, equity, and inclusion” from every federal regulation, policy, and program. This also includes government contracts and grants, meaning the businesses the government works with to carry out its services would not need to represent the communities they serve.
Project 2025 would also dismantle federal government DEI offices. And it wants to enable businesses to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity for transgender and gender non-conforming people. Additionally, it recommends treating past participation in critical race theory or DEI initiatives as grounds for termination for federal employees.
Project 2025 would allow the next Department of Justice to investigate and prosecute all state and local governments, higher education institutions, and private employers with DEI initiatives, diminishing efforts to counter and reduce discrimination.
Cumulatively, businesses would be less able to hire and retain a diverse workforce.
From pages 4, 5, 103, 258, 352, 580 – 585, and 708 of the Mandate for Leadership.
Threaten America’s monetary stability.
Keeping prices stable and inflation rates low preserves the value of money over time. Project 2025’s proposals risk dramatic swings in the valuation of our currency, harming both consumers and the economy.
Read More 4Project 2025 proposes abolishing the Federal Reserve, consideration of a “free banking” system, and eliminating or reducing the role of the Federal Reserve as a lender of last resort. The Federal Reserve has played an important and independent role in stabilizing the value of the dollar. Eliminating or politicizing the Federal Reserve could lead to inflation or stagflation.
From pages 736 – 737 of the Mandate for Leadership.
Restrict trade, increase the price of goods, and limit foreign investment in the name of “protectionism.”
Project 2025’s menu of policy options includes a call for an anti-democratic president to take a protectionist approach to trade, which restricts trade and increases the price of goods.
Read More 5Business thrives when people have money in their pockets. Protectionist approaches to trade can cost Americans: a 10% universal tariff (which President Trump has spoken favorably about) imports would cost the typical U.S. family $1,500. Moreover, fair trade policies like the ones in Project 2025 limit foreign investment and trade, all of which can hurt businesses’ bottom line.
From pages 765 – 795 of the Mandate for Leadership.
Eradicate or manipulate data sources businesses rely on.
A key function of government is collection and maintenance of large national data sources that provide information regarding trends in our nation on everything from the weather to the workforce.
Read More 6Many of these data sources are critical for economic forecasting and for businesses to be able to make smart decisions about products to invest in, untapped markets, and more. Project 2025 would halt government’s collection of wage and labor data (such as EEO-1 data regarding workforce demographics), which are needed for accurate economic forecasting. Without this, businesses will be forced to make major decisions in the dark.
From page 583 of the Mandate for Leadership.