. Some Project 2025 proposals may require Congressional approval or favorable Supreme Court rulings, but many others appear designed for implementation through executive orders or regulatory action—a pattern noted in independent analyses of executive orders and regulatory initiatives aligned with the project.
Economy Project 2025 provides a range of options for economic reform that vary in their degree of radicalism. It is critical of the
Federal Reserve, which it blames for the
business cycle, and proposes its gradual abolition; it advocates instead that the dollar be backed by a commodity like
gold. The project envisions eventually moving from an income tax to a
consumption tax, such as a national
sales tax. It further recommends simplifying individual income taxes to two
flat tax rates: 15% on incomes up to the
Social Security Wage Base ($168,600 in 2024), and 30% above that. An unspecified
standard deduction would be included, but most deductions, credits and exclusions would be eliminated. It aims to reduce the
corporate tax rate from 21% to 18% because the mandate authors see it as the most harmful tax. The 2017 TCJA cut the rate from 35% to 21%. The constitutionality of such "legislative entrenchment" is debated, but most legal scholars agree it is not allowed. The project proposes merging the
Bureau of Economic Analysis, the
Census Bureau, and the
Bureau of Labor Statistics into a single organization, and aligning its mission with conservative principles. It recommends maximizing the hiring of political appointees in statistical analysis positions. It also recommends that Congress abolish the
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. It plans to abolish the
FTC, which is responsible for enforcing antitrust laws, and shrink the role of the
National Labor Relations Board, which protects employees' ability to organize and fight unfair labor practices. Project 2025 suggests abolishing the
Economic Development Administration (EDA) at the
Department of Commerce, and, if that proves impossible, having the EDA instead assist "rural communities destroyed by the Biden administration's attack on
domestic energy production". The project declares that "God ordained the
Sabbath as a day of rest" and recommends legislation requiring that Americans be paid more for working on Sunday. Project 2025 is split on the issue of foreign trade. He argues that Trump's and Biden's tariffs have undermined not just the American economy, but also the nation's international alliances.
Education and research A major concern of Project 2025 is what it calls "
woke propaganda" in public schools. Project 2025 further advocates that Title I of the
Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 be allowed to expire, removing $18 billion in federal funds for schools in low-income areas. For the project's backers, education is a private rather than a
public good. Project 2025 encourages the president to ensure that "any research conducted with taxpayer dollars serves the national interest in a concrete way in line with conservative principles".
Environment and climate Mandate's climate section was written by several people, including
Mandy Gunasekara, whom Trump previously chose as the EPA's chief of staff, and
Bernard McNamee, whom Trump appointed to the
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. She claimed to have been an instrumental advocate for the
United States withdrawal from the Paris Agreement in 2017. On the other hand, project director Paul Dans accepts only that climate change is real, not that human activity causes it. It proposes abandoning strategies for reducing
greenhouse gas emissions responsible for
climate change, including by repealing regulations that curb emissions, and abolishing the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which the project calls "one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry". One scientific expert said these policies would endanger lives, are
shooting the messenger, and serve the
climate change denial movement. The
Inflation Reduction Act increased the Department of Energy's Loan Programs Office's loan budget from $40 billion to $400 billion. Project 2025 supports repealing the Inflation Reduction Act and closing the Loan Programs Office. McNamee advocates that the DOE reorient funding at the national labs it sponsors from climate change and renewable energy research to making energy more affordable. Heritage Foundation energy and climate director
Diana Furchtgott-Roth has suggested that the EPA support the consumption of more
natural gas, despite climatologists' concern that this would increase leaks of
methane (CH4), a
greenhouse gas more potent than
carbon dioxide (CO2) in the short term. considered the Inflation Reduction Act crucial, and U.S. representative (now U.S. senator)
John Curtis said it was vital that Republicans "engage in supporting good energy and climate policy".
American Conservation Coalition founder Benji Backer noted growing consensus among younger Republicans that human activity causes climate change, and called the project wrongheaded.
Expansion of presidential powers Project 2025 seeks to place the federal government's entire executive branch under direct presidential control, eliminating the independence of the DOJ, Project 2025 advocates that all
Department of State employees in leadership roles be dismissed before January 20, 2025. It explicitly recommends replacing these executive branch positions with ideologically vetted State Department leaders appointed to acting roles that do not require Senate confirmation.
Kiron Skinner, who wrote the State Department chapter of Project 2025, ran the department's office of policy planning for less than a year during the Trump administration before being forced out of the department. She considers most State Department employees too left-wing and wants them replaced by those more loyal to a conservative president. When asked by
Peter Bergen in June 2024 if she could name a time when State Department employees obstructed Trump policy, she said she could not. If Project 2025 were implemented, congressional approval would not be required for the sale of military equipment and ammunition to a foreign nation, The idea has seen a resurgence and popularization within the
Republican Party since the
9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001. In 2023,
Stephen Miller proposed immediately mobilizing the military at the start of second Trump administration for domestic law and immigration enforcement under the
Insurrection Act of 1807.
Jeffrey Clark, a senior fellow at CRA and Project 2025 contributor, has investigated using the Insurrection Act for other purposes, including suppressing protests like the
George Floyd protests. Russell Vought said the CRA was working to keep legal and defense communities from preventing use of the Insurrection Act. Clark also promoted making the Department of Justice less independent of the president in order to let Trump prosecute his political rivals. For his alleged acts while working at the DOJ during the end of Trump's term, Clark has become a co-defendant in the
Georgia election racketeering prosecution and an unnamed co-conspirator in the
federal prosecution of Trump for alleged election obstruction. According to reporting in outlets such as NBC News and NPR, Heritage officials have denied that Project 2025 includes plans to prosecute political opponents, framing such accusations as mischaracterizations of the initiative.
Cornell University political scientist
Rachel Beatty Riedl said that this global phenomenon represented threats to democratic rule not from violence but from using democratic institutions to consolidate executive power. She said, "if Project 2025 is implemented, what it means is a dramatic decrease in American citizens' ability to engage in public life based on the kind of principles of liberty, freedom and representation that are accorded in a democracy." Phillip Wallach, a senior fellow studying separation of powers at the
American Enterprise Institute, characterized the project as visions that bleed into authoritarian fantasies. For Trump's second term the project recommends that a
White House Counsel be selected who is "deeply committed" to the president's "
America First" agenda. On January 20, 2025, Trump signed an executive order to that effect. In response to Schedule F's reinstatement, several unions sued and took other protective measures to prevent its full implementation. Political scientist
Francis Fukuyama has said that while the federal bureaucracy is in dire need of reform, Schedule F would "dangerously undermine" the government's functionality. In 2023, the Heritage Foundation said it planned to have 20,000 personnel in its database by the end of 2024. Project 2025 encourages Congress to require federal contractors to be 70% U.S. citizens, ultimately raising the limit to 95%.
Max Stier of the
Partnership for Public Service voiced concern the project would revive the early-American
spoils-and-patronage system that awarded government jobs to those loyal to a party or elected official rather than by merit. The
Pendleton Act of 1883 mandated that federal jobs be awarded by merit. Former Trump campaign and presidency senior advisor
Steve Bannon has advocated for the plan on his
War Room podcast, hosting Jeffrey Clark and others working on the project. One example Severino gives is the Biden administration's reversal of the Trump-era finding that using stem cells derived from abortions is unethical. This finding prevented HHS from funding research that uses abortion-derived stem cells. and federal healthcare providers should deny transgender people
gender-affirming care. Other proposals include limiting state use of provider taxes, eliminating preexisting federal beneficiary protections and requirements, increasing eligibility determinations and asset test determinations to make it harder to enroll in, apply for, and renew Medicaid, providing an option to turn Medicaid into a voucher program, and eliminating federal oversight of state Medicaid programs. Project 2025 aims to alter the National Institutes of Health (NIH) by making it easier to fire employees and to remove DEI programs. Severino says the
CDC should not publish health advice, because it is inherently political.
Stephen Miller, a key architect of immigration policy during the Trump presidency, is a major figure in Project 2025. In late 2023, Miller was reported to have considered deputizing local police and sheriffs for the undertaking, as well as agents of the
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the
Drug Enforcement Administration.
Identity Project 2025 opposes what it calls "radical
gender ideology" Project contributor Jonathan Berry explains, "The goal here is to move toward
colorblindness and to recognize that we need to have laws and policies that treat people like full human beings not reducible to categories, especially when it comes to race."
Journalism Project 2025 proposes reconsidering the accommodations given to journalists who are members of the
White House Press Corps. It also entertains the idea of revoking NPR stations' noncommercial status, forcing them to move outside the 88–92 range on the FM dial, which could then be taken by religious programming.
Brendan Carr, who wrote the article on the
Federal Communications Commission in Project 2025, The Project also proposes allowing more media consolidation by changing FCC rules that would allow for the converting
local news programs into national news programs. The institute added that Project 2025 could imperil election officials by misusing the Department of Justice to target those whose actions do not align with the president's ideology.
Law enforcement In the view of Project 2025, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has become "a bloated bureaucracy with a critical core of personnel who are infatuated with the perpetuation of a radical liberal agenda" and has "forfeited the trust" of the American people due to its role in the investigation of
alleged Trump–Russia collusion. It must therefore be thoroughly reformed and closely overseen by the White House, and the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) must be personally accountable to the president. Former Trump DOJ official Gene Hamilton argues that "advancing the interests of certain segments of American society... comes at the expense of other Americans—and in nearly all cases violates longstanding federal law" and that the DOJ's Civil Rights Division would therefore "prosecute all state and local governments, institutions of higher education, corporations, and any other private employers" with DEI or
affirmative action programs. According to Project 2025, if the responsibilities of the FBI and another federal agency, such as the
Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), overlapped, then the latter should take the lead, leaving the FBI to concentrate on (other) serious crimes and threats to national security. During Trump's first term, the federal government carried out the first federal death sentence since 2003. In 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in
Kennedy v. Louisiana that capital punishment for child rape violates the
Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Project 2025 favors neither
interventionism nor
isolationism, instead insisting that all decisions related to
foreign policy prioritize national interests. It prefers transactional bilateral agreements to maintaining and building alliances. In the
Mandate, Max Primorac suggests significant changes to the
U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)'s mission due to controversial issues such as the organization's promotion of abortion as healthcare, policies to mitigate climate change, acknowledgment of gender identities, and campaigns against systemic racism. Primorac recommends excising the words
gender,
abortion,
reproductive health, and
sexual and reproductive rights from all USAID programs and documents. Christopher Miller advocates that the U.S. replace all its Cold War nuclear capabilities and infrastructure and develop the
LGM-35 Sentinel. He also promotes testing more weapons in violation of the
Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. More specifically,
Mandate calls for a speech shortly after inauguration to "make the case to the American people that nuclear weapons are the ultimate guarantor of their freedom and prosperity", to be followed by additional funding for nuclear weapons modernization programs to develop and produce new warheads such as W87-1 Mod and W88 Alt 370 and deploy as-yet-unproven directed-energy and space-based weapons and a "cruise missile defense of the homeland". It also advocates restarting funding for nuclear armed
submarine-launched cruise missiles. Plans include placing multiple warheads on each
Minuteman III ICBM and its
Sentinel replacement by 2026, putting nuclear warheads on Army ground-launched missiles, adding nuclear capabilities to hypersonic missile systems, directing the Air Force to investigate a road-mobile ICBM launcher, expanding the pre-positioning of nuclear bombs and weapons in Europe and Asia, and directing the
National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to "transition to a wartime footing". This would be funded by directing the NNSA to submit monthly briefings to the Oval Office and separate budget requests from the Energy Department, along with directing the
Office of Management and Budget to submit a supplemental budget request to Congress. Project 2025 would require the Defense Department to abolish its DEI programs and immediately reinstate all service members discharged for not getting vaccinated against COVID-19.
Pornography and adult content In the foreword of Project 2025's
Mandate, Kevin Roberts argues that pornography promotes sexual deviance, the sexualization of children, and the exploitation of women; is not protected by the
First Amendment to the United States Constitution; and should be banned. When the Republican Party nominated him for president in 2016, Trump signed a pledge to examine the "public health impact of Internet pornography on youth, families and the American culture". He did not fulfill this promise. It views the
Federal Transit Administration (FTA) unfavorably, calling it a waste of money. It suggests cutting federal funding for transit agencies nationwide in the form of the Capital Investment Grants (CIG) program. It wants the FTA to conduct "rigorous cost–benefit analysis" even though the agency already scrutinizes projects before allocating funding.
Abortion and reproductive healthcare Project 2025's proponents maintain that life begins at
conception. In 2022, the Supreme Court ruled in ''
Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization that, contrary to Roe v. Wade'', state abortion bans are constitutional, but Project 2025 encourages the next president "to enact the most robust protections for the unborn that Congress will support". The project seeks to restore Trump-era "religious and moral exemptions" to contraceptive requirements under the ACA, including
emergency contraception (Plan B), which it deems an
abortifacient, Waters said she wanted the NIH to investigate
contraception's long-term effects. Project 2025 seeks to revive provisions of the
Comstock Act that banned mail delivery of any "instrument, substance, drug, medicine, or thing" that could be used for an abortion. Congress and the courts have narrowed Comstock laws, allowing
contraceptives to be delivered by mail. It does not explicitly advocate banning abortion, To prevent
teenage pregnancy, Project 2025 advises the federal government to deprecate what it considers promotion of abortion and high-risk sexual behaviors among adolescents. It also seeks to remove HHS's role in shaping
sex education, arguing that this is tantamount to creating a monopoly. ==Other initiatives==