There is a lot of babble on the internet and social media about the Heritage Foundation’s latest edition of their white paper for a conservative administration. It’s called Project 2025 Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise or just Project 2025 for short.
President-Elect Donald Trump has stated over and over again that he isn’t going to implement Project 2025. The President-Elect has his own agenda, some of it may be in parallel with Project 2025 but it is not the same thing.
Project 2025 is a BIG book, having 922 pages from cover to cover. The commentary within was written by a number of authors and contributors, many of whom, have served in conservative administrations in the past.
This is intended to be a guidebook for the next conservative administration. In this case, for the 47th President of the United States, Donald J. Trump. A gift to the incoming president from the Heritage Foundation.
It is a heavy, and at times, a boring read. It might be the size of two novels but it’s not a story to capture the reader. Even with that I am going to recommend that everyone should read this publication. That way you can know what is in it and what is not in it directly. And see who is lying to you about it.
The publication is freely available from the Heritage Foundation. And it will open your eyes to the detailed workings of our executive branch. And just how big it is in size.
Within the forward are the four stated goals for the Mandate for Leadership.
- Restore the family as the centerpiece for American life and protect our children.
- Dismantle the administrative state and return self-governance to the American people.
- Defend our nation’s sovereignty, borders, and bounty against global threats.
- Secure our God-given individual rights to live freely — what our Constitution calls “the Blessings of Liberty.”
There are details for each of these points and the overall goals still within the forward section. I found nothing alarming unless one is a friend of Communist China that is stealing American farmland, industry, and intellectual property. Or perhaps you are for addictive pornography and it’s effect on sexualizing our children and grandchildren and demeaning women. Then again maybe you like a bloated government that wastes your tax dollars and overspends us into unrecoverable debit. Then you will find those points and more very alarming.
These and many other issues are addressed within the pages of this book. No where does it take away anyone’s rights. In fact just the opposite, the aim is to restore the rights of the people..
The rest of the book is divided into sections that group together various departments and agencies of the executive branch. And in case you haven’t ever had a civics class. The President is the Chief Executive, and therefore, the head of the executive branch. These departments and agencies are discussed in fine details that include information on when they were created. What the goals are for each department (per their charters). It gives recent budget details and the number of civil service employees working within that department.
Each department gets a discussion on mission creep. The usefulness of the department in today’s modern world. Some departments are over 100’s old and others much younger. And then finally recommendations for day one and beyond.
Within these recommendations are what the President can do through Executive Orders, approval of the Senate, or without approval of the Senate. And there are recommendations about various Acts that Congress should pass in order to meet the recommendation goals.
Usually, there is a call for an audit of the department to find and eliminate wasteful spending. This can help the department better to focus their goals and mission. Recommendations include the possible reduction in staff, moving and or merging with other departments, or even the elimination of the department.
There are a number of departments that are redundant within the executive branch. These need to be ether combined or the redundant departments eliminated. Others work better if they were part of an different agency or department. Something that is doing a similar job and merging and moving can increase efficiency.
When a department is recommended to be shuttered, closed down for good. The authors know that sometimes this can be problematic to complete. Therefore they also give alternative recommendations to streamline the department without shutting it down. But I am in agreement on shutting down a few of them.
Some departments should be divorced from the Federal government. They should be moved to the private sector which would be better at running that department turned into a corporation. And makes that department immune to government corruption as it is no longer under the direct control of government.
This is the summary of Project 2025. Again I am highly recommending that you read it for yourself so that you can see there is nothing to fear from it. You can download it directly from the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 website. But if you don’t want to given them your information, I understand completely. That is way I am making it available here as well. See the Project 2025 download link at the bottom of this article.
If you have questions about Project 2025 and don’t feel like reading the 900+ pages for yourself; then ask away here in the comments. I will reply with the answer and even cite the text so you can see it in back and white.