Editor’s note: Today, Jack Bernard begins a three-part series looking at Project 2025 and what it would mean if this program guided the next Trump Administration. The series will continue on the next two Tuesdays.—eeb)
“He’s very supportive of what we do.”
– – Russell Vought (Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget)
By Jack Bernard, contributing columnist
Part one of three.
PEACHTREE CITY, GA. | Russell Vought is one of the forces behind Project 2025, a radical 920-page plan to reorganize the federal government. It details numerous incoming Trump administration potential objectives and enumerates specific actions to accomplish these goals within the first 120 days. It was prepared by the conservative think tank, The Heritage Foundation.
Donald Trump, because of political pressure, has broadly refuted the document, but not stated anything specific about it. However, it was developed by dozens of people who were key policy figures in the last Trump administration. Thus, we can reasonably expect this Heritage plan to constitute the framework for the Trump administration’s policies, if he is elected.
This document can be broken down into six broad categories:
- health/social security;
- government agencies;
- education;
- government regulations;
- taxes; and
- energy.
Today we will deal with healthcare and social security.
Project 2025 details ways to privatize Social Security (page 627), stating “Existing statutory language in the Social Security Act does not prohibit non-public organizations from administering the program.” Privatizing the program could lead to insolvency and fraud, endangering the retirement of many Americans.
Further, it should be noted that Social Security is currently one of the most popular federal programs, so there is no need to have it run by self-interested Big Business interests? It could be made totally sustainable by removing the current cap on income taxes under the program ($168,600), a move favored by many Democrats yet rejected by the Republicans.
Project 2025 is radically right and misogynistic when it comes to a woman’s right to control her own body (page 6). It indicates Trump should “…enact the most robust protections for the unborn that Congress will support while deploying existing federal powers to protect innocent life.” Many Congressional conservatives advocate banning abortions with no exceptions.
Further, it says that the “Federal Drug Administration should “…reverse its approval of chemical abortion drugs” (page 284). And this document promotes restricting abortion access for veterans (page 676).
About Medicare and Medicaid programs, it says that there should be “alternative insurance coverage options” and no government “pricing control” (page 450). Therefore, the Affordable Care Act would be gutted, and millions of Americans would lose their health insurance (page 468). Medicaid expansion would be limited by adding bureaucratic, unenforceable “work requirements.”
Known as the Pathways waiver in our state, this approach failed miserably, wasting resources because of overwhelmingly bureaucratic reporting measures. Georgia projected 100,000-200,000 new people would be covered via Pathways. However, only 4,500 received coverage and administrative costs are extremely high. If current Medicaid expansion ceases to exist, many millions will lose coverage while bureaucracy is increased.
Traditional Medicare would be even further gutted by making private Medicare Advantage PPOs and HMOs “the default enrollment option” (page 465). Also, it would remove regulatory agency “burdensome policies” (i.e. regulations protecting patients). Further, Project 2025 would do away with the recently announced price reduction on drugs for Medicare beneficiaries by ending- “taxes on drug manufacturers to compel them to comply with Medicare price controls” (page 696).
Project 2025 encourages vague and questionable free-market healthcare “solutions” (page 500-502). Further, the Project politicizes healthcare policy, saying- “Cultural institutions like…public health agencies are only as ‘independent’ from public accountability as elected officials and voters permit.”
Next week, we will deal with government agencies and what Project 2025 indicates the incoming Trump administration should do to create radical change.
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