Project 2025: The Basics
I’m going to be posting occasional thoughts on Project 2025 over the few weeks. But there are some foundational things that I think need to be made clear prior to any discussion of the policy embedded in that right-wing screed.
For starters, The Heritage Foundation is registered as a 501(c)(3) organization. That’s a status that gives them the ability to operate as a charitable organization — that is, tax-exempt. But here’s what the IRS has to say about 501(c)(3) organizations, in the very first paragraph:
To be tax-exempt under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, an organization must be organized and operated exclusively for exempt purposes set forth in section 501(c)(3), and none of its earnings may inure to any private shareholder or individual. In addition, it may not be an action organization, i.e., it may not attempt to influence legislation as a substantial part of its activities and it may not participate in any campaign activity for or against political candidates. [Emphasis added]
Right out of the starting gate, it seems as if they’re in violation of tax law even for simply putting together this extremist policy screed, whether their intended “future conservative president” is Donald Trump or not.
But The Heritage Foundation has been around D.C. for a long time, so they know what loopholes they can leverage. I’ll leave the specifics of Project 2025’s legality to the accountants and the attorneys. But it certainly looks like Project 2025’s very existence under the auspices of The Heritage Foundation is in violation of tax law.
If you have any hesitancy about the legitimacy of The Heritage Foundation as a not-for-profit organization, check out their financials:
$338 million in total assets? They certainly didn’t raise that stash of cash from bake sales and car washes.
When Project 2025 was released, The Heritage Foundation and its various authors seemed to have believed either that it could mostly fly under the radar pf the news media or that the policies they articulated in that document were way more popular than they actually are. Perhaps it was both. But it seems clear they had no idea just how many feathers they would ruffle by compiling nearly 1,000 pages of the most extreme, unpopular, and un-American policy positions and basically presenting them as their plan to influence American politics.
No one seems to have been caught off guard more by the backlash against Project 2025 than Donald Trump himself. He has been clumsily trying to distance himself from it, pretending that he has nothing to do with Project 2025, and that Project 2025 has nothing to do with his campaign’s policy proposals. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The felon doth protest too much, methinks.
As is so often the case with Trump, especially when he’s so adamant about a topic, he’s lying. The Heritage Foundation has been boasting about their influence on Trump’s policy agenda since at least 2018. In a post on The Heritage Foundation’s own website entitled Trump Administration Embraces Heritage Foundation Policy Recommendations, the Foundation boasts:
The “Mandate for Leadership” series includes five individual publications, totaling approximately 334 unique policy recommendations. Analysis completed by Heritage determined that 64 percent of the policy prescriptions were included in Trump’s budget, implemented through regulatory guidance, or under consideration for action in accordance with The Heritage Foundation’s original proposals.
Despite Trump’s claims of knowing nothing at all about Project 2025, a CNN analysis cites at least 140 people who were part of the Trump administration had a hand in the creation of Project 2025, including:
J.D. Vance — Trump’s VP Running Mate. Vance’s relationship with Heritage goes back many years, and he recently wrote the foreword to Kevin Roberts’ book, “Dawn’s Early Light: Taking Back Washington to Save America.” (Roberts is the President of The Heritage Foundation.) The book echoes many of the concepts in Project 2025, including plans for overhauling or eliminating many of the nation’s institutions. Now that their fingers have been caught in the political cookie jar, Heritage has delayed the release of that book until after the election.
Ken Cucinelli — Without confirmation by the Senate, Cucinelli acted as Deputy Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security under Trump. The section of Project 2025 that he authored recommends complete restructuring of that agency.
Peter Navarro (convicted felon) — Assistant to the President; Director, Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy (a newly created position in the Trump White House). As reflected in his section of Project 2025, Navarro is probably the guy who planted the seed in Trump’s head that tariffs on all imported goods would fix the trade deficit, conveniently ignoring the fact that any tariffs placed on imported goods would be offset by our trading partners with increased costs of those goods, thereby effectively increasing prices on virtually everything that comes into the country.
Mandy Gunesekara — Chief of Staff, Environmental Protection Agency during the Trump administration. His section of Project 2025 advocates for diminishing the enforcement power of the EPA, as well as implementing additional layers of bureaucracy which would impede the agency’s ability to prevent environmental damage.
William Perry Pendley — Director, Bureau of Land Management (Department of Interior) during the Trump administration. Under the recommendations of this backwards thinking anti-environmentalist, millions of acres of federal land would be subject to oil and gas drilling.
Let’s also not forget that it was The Heritage Foundation that provided Donald Trump with a list of judges that they approved of as Supreme Court Justices, and the three Justices that Trump nominated from that list during his time in office are responsible for overturning Roe v. Wade.
Donald J. Trump, having no real values of his own, has outsourced the details of policy to the most “inside the beltway” right-wing religion-driven lobbying organization.
The most charitable way to characterize Trump’s denial that he knows anything about Project 2025 would be disingenuous. The most honest way to characterize his denial is that he’s flat out lying.