In which I change my methodology for this review of Project 2025, because I’m only up to page 283 (Section Three: The General Welfare) and I suspect the ratio of actionable policy suggestions to dogma-driven policy agenda is not going to improve. I don’t want us all to simply fatigue out.
What’s most important is for us (meaning progressives) to have a reasonable idea of what P25 says. So rather than deep-diving each of the eleven chapters in Section Three, I’m going to read them, provide the briefest possible summary, then give a takeaway statement.
The introductory essay first. On page 283: “In essence, our deficit problem is a Medicare and Medicaid problem.” Summarized: mask and vaccine mandates bad because personal freedom; abortion ban good because women should all be married mothers without personal freedom; gut the Dept. of Justice; shut down the Dept. of Education; fossil fuels good.
Bear in mind the appointments that DJT has already made. There is every reason to believe that the efficiency czars will come, to at least some extent, for all of the departments covered in this section.
Department of Agriculture (begins p. 289). Comprised of 29 agencies with nearly 100,000 employees and a FY 2023 budget allocation of $261 billion, of which 70% is nutrition assistance (p. 291).
Summary: remove regulatory controls, especially those concerning sustainable practices and energy use; fight food imports; remove supply-chain barriers; eliminate subsidy dependence; reduce federal participation in crop insurance and price supports; increase transparency in the farm bill process; separate nutrition assistance from agricultural allocation; re-implement work requirements for SNAP; standardize utility allowances (this is about linking certain welfare programs); reform WIC; cut back school meals; reform conservation programs (finally back to actual agriculture); limit wetlands orders and easements; ease barriers to interstate sales of meat and poultry; eliminate marketing orders and checkoffs; more genetic engineering and repeal labeling mandate; reform wildfire management; eliminate USDA dietary guidelines.
Takeaway: I agree that nutrition assistance programs should be moved to DHHS, and many of the other suggestions seem reasonable.
Slashing food-safety regulations, promoting genetic engineering (which in this sense is used for, e.g., inserting pesticide-friendly genes into corn, which then requires farmers to apply that specific pesticide), and removing incentives for organic agriculture: not acceptable.
Department of Education (p. 319). First a quote from the introductory essay. “The department is a convenient one-stop shop for the woke education cartel … (p. 285).” P25 wants to eliminate this department. Instead: “[E]very parent should have the option to direct his or her child’s share of education funding through an education savings account (ESA), funded overwhelmingly by state and local taxpayers … (p. 319; test case for this is Arizona).”
Summary: any federal funds for education should be block-granted to the states, no strings attached; post-secondary policy should focus on workforce skills, including apprenticeships and technical education; eliminate student loan relief. Then: move aid components to DHHS; move programs concerning Native Americans to those agencies; move adult education, special education, and rehabilitative programs to DHHS; defederalize student loans; move the Office for Civil Rights to the DOJ; pass a reorganization or liquidating authority act to dispose of all the stray personnel, budget line items, etc; ease restrictions on charter schools; eliminate ‘nonbinary’ sex category in civil rights data collection; prohibit appropriations under Title IX and rescind Title IX regulations; “define ‘sex’ under Title IX to mean only biological sex recognized at birth; and strengthen protections for faith-based educational institutions, programs, and activities (p. 333).”
At this point we have departed from the structure of government into rejection of nonbinary identities including transgender identities, calling for an official government statement “that ‘sex’ is properly understood as a fixed biological fact (p. 334).”
I’m flagging that because we are no longer talking about education, we are talking about a religious agenda.
Then P25 calls for rescinding the National Education Association’s congressional charter and holding hearings to determine how much taxpayer money this teacher’s union has “used for radical causes favoring a single political party (p. 342).” So now we are talking about using government resources to conduct a witch hunt amongst politically-active public school teachers.
Next, P25 calls for a federal Parents’ Bill of Rights, which is at heart about requiring schools to notify parents if a child or adolescent appears to be gender-questioning. They propose legislation barring public education staff from addressing a student with a name other than that on the birth certificate, or a pronoun other than that consistent with the student’s “biological sex,” without written permission from the student’s parent or guardian. They also propose legislation allowing public education staff to claim religious conviction as a basis for denying recognition requested by a student (p. 346).
How about this instead: legislation forbidding any public employee at any level from claiming a religious conviction in an attempt to get out of providing the service they were hired to provide. You don’t want to provide service to everybody equally? Go find another job.
The discussion next moves to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), which accounts for roughly $13.5 billion a year. P25 suggests moving IDEA management to DHHS (p. 349) and funds disbursed directly to parents (as, I suppose, an Education Savings Account but with federal money) – until phased out in favor of state programs. Next, allow states to opt out of federal K-12 education programs.
Moving on to higher education, P25 wants to reform accreditation (p. 351); privatize all lending programs (except keep Pell grants); failing that, stop forgiving student loans; cap indirect costs at universities (this is about research); enforce reporting of gifts and grants from sources outside the US.
They also want to shut down the entire department, did I mention that?
Takeaway: I actually don’t disagree, in theory, with dismantling this department. It’s relatively small (4000 people, $2 billion) with a scope of work that would not be mortally injured by transferring it to the purview of the states. I don’t even think the Education Savings Accounts are a bad idea. People who don’t have kids would end up subsidizing those who do, but we already do that, and it’s in the best interest of all citizens to provide public education.
However, the notion that our government should adopt an official stance on what constitutes sex or gender should be loudly rejected. There is no legitimate government interest in policing how people identify. An official stance of this nature would simply be a blanket permission for people who are ideologically fixated on binary identities to discriminate against those who aren’t.
Additionally, government education funds should absolutely never go to “faith-based” institutions. That’s religious favoritism, functionally equivalent to an establishment of religion, which is forbidden by our First Amendment.
(Edited to add) Oh, and one more thing:
You don’t get to say you’re all about protecting “the American family” at the same time you’re proposing to do away with school lunch programs which provide, for millions of kids, the one meal they can count on five days a week.