Project 2025 does not directly suggest a federal ban on abortion. But it does recommend that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) should no longer consider abortion a form of health care and considerably limit access to other reproductive care.
Project 2025 authors recommend establishing federal policies that would limit access to contraception, restrict access to abortion and eliminate federal funding to healthcare providers who perform abortions. The initiative also proposes new directives that would allow more employers to opt out of birth control coverage as part of insurance plans.
Project 2025 recommends defunding Planned Parenthood and similar organizations, and disqualifying Planned Parenthood from Medicaid and federal grant programs. It also recommends limiting access to Plan B, and prohibiting pharmacies from distributing abortion medication.
According to an
analysis by the Center for American Progress (CAP), a left-leaning think tank, if Project 2025 were enacted, nearly 48 million women of reproductive age would lose guaranteed no-cost access to emergency contraception.
Homeland security, immigration and the border wall
Project 2025’s plan re-enacts Trump-era policies regarding border enforcement, detention for kids and families in tent cities, deportations and building the border wall.
It also calls for the dismantling of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the creation of the “Border Security and Immigration Agency,” among other reorganized departments. The plan says this new agency would direct customs officers to take into custody any undocumented person who has records of felonies, crimes of violence, DUIs, or “any other crime that is considered a national security” threat.
This would require congressional approval.
The Constitution says Congress holds the legislative power to create new offices, but the president would still retain some authority to appoint figures in those offices.
Project 2025 calls for the end of the
Flores Settlement Agreement, which outlines protection and standard of care for immigrant children while in U.S. custody. Instead, the plan says Congress should focus on setting new nationwide terms, which would allow for temporary housing and detainment facilities, including tents, which are not currently allowed.
RELATED: Claim about Coors, Walmart and Exxon’s ties to Heritage Foundation and Project 2025 need context
Taxes and the IRS
Project 2025 reimagines the tax system in the United States. It recommends replacing the current tax code with either a flat 15% or 30% income tax rate on individuals, and an unspecified standard deduction. The U.S. currently has seven federal income tax brackets, with rates of 10%, 12%, 22%, 24%, 32%, 35% and 37%.
The plan recommends taxing all capital gains and dividends at 15%, and cutting corporate income tax rates from 20% to 18%. Other taxes for multinational corporations would also be repealed or reduced.
The Constitution gives Congress the power to tax, which means any changes to the tax code would have to be conducted through congressional legislation.
Project 2025 proposes increasing the number of political appointees to the IRS while reducing the staff and freezing the budget. It also calls for the abolishment of the
Federal Reserve.
‘MAGA loyalists’ in administration
Project 2025 proposes that there is a legal path to allow for the firing of as many as 50,000 federal employees that may not be considered “conservative” enough.
Project 2025 recommends reinstating Schedule F — a Trump-era executive order that would reclassify tens of thousands of the two million federal employees as essentially at-will workers who could more easily be fired. Trump signed the executive order toward the end of his term and it was rescinded after President Joe Biden took office.
On April 4, 2024, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM), which manages federal workers,
issued an order making it harder for any president to make loyalty hires. Changing this rule would take several months.
The positions would be filled with people previously vetted for conservative credentials and included in a database, referred to by the Heritage Foundation as the “Conservative LinkedIn.”
The Tax Policy Center says some of the Project 2025 plans outlined would, more broadly, “
centralize control of the federal bureaucracy in the White House, freeze hiring, and give the president broad authority to fire federal workers.”
On July 2, during an interview with Real America’s Voice, a far-right news outlet, Heritage Foundation Director Kevin Roberts referenced Project 2025 and the process of “taking the country back” from the “radical left.”
"We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be,” Roberts said in the interview.
Education and schools
Project 2025 authors recommend that the Department of Education be completely eliminated in order to “empower students and families, not government.”
There is no recommendation for public schools to be eliminated, a claim some VERIFY readers asked us about, but federal and state lawmakers are encouraged to pass legislation that would allow parents to determine curriculum.
Project 2025 recommends that
critical race theory and gender ideology should be removed from every public school in the country.
It also urges state and federal lawmakers to pass legislation that would give parents the right to sue for damages if their children are being taught something without prior consent.
Project 2025 advocates for federal legislation that could prohibit schools from using names and pronouns that do not match the student’s sex assigned at birth without a parent's consent.
VERIFY didn’t find any specific reference that advocates for arming teachers in Project 2025’s blueprint, as a
meme implied. However, the Heritage Foundation
has been a long-time advocate of school safety initiatives that promote having armed resource officers.
Project 2025 and the U.S. Constitution
The Project 2025 plan doesn’t mention changing the Constitution and the authors argue they share a strong commitment to upholding and adhering to the Constitution. The plan calls for getting the U.S. government “back to something resembling the original Constitutional intent” through a smaller, limited government.
In fact, because of the way the Constitution established the federal government, not all recommendations in Project 2025 can be made unilaterally and without oversight.
An executive order by the president does have significant authority, but it doesn’t give the president the power to override laws or bypass Congress. Executive orders can also be challenged in court. Through the system of checks and balances, the judicial branch of the government can strike down executive orders that are found to be unconstitutional or beyond the president’s authority.
A president, in most cases, also doesn’t have the authority to make presidential appointments without oversight. According to the American Constitution Society, top-level, senior positions that include the heads of most major agencies require Senate approval. Presidential appointments that don’t require Senate approval are positions within the Executive Office of the President that includes White House aides, advisors and key assistants.
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