Republican presidential candidate and former president Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Philadelphia on June 22, 2024. Trump has sought to distance himself from a major reform plan for the federal government that was drafted by his administration officials.
Chris Zagora | AP
The roughly 900-page “Order,” aimed at “paving the way for an effective conservative government,” proposes reforms to the federal government and sweeping policy changes that would affect family taxes, savings, and more. The Heritage Foundation launched the project in 2022 and published the policy collection in April 2023.
President Joe Biden and Democrats have held up Project 2025 as an example of what a second term for former President Donald Trump might look like. Biden has a page dedicated to the project on his campaign website, describing it as a “blueprint for Trump to run.”
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But in recent weeks, President Trump has distanced himself from the policy proposals.
“I know nothing about Project 2025, I’ve never seen it, I don’t know who is in charge of it, and unlike the highly popular Republican platform, I have no affiliation whatsoever with Project 2025,” Trump said in a Truth Social post on July 11.
But if Trump hasn’t embraced the paper, its authors certainly have: Several former employees of Trump were involved in the playbook’s creation, and a recently resurfaced April 2022 video shows Trump discussing the organization’s plans at a Heritage Foundation banquet.
“This is an incredible group,” Trump said. “They’re going to lay the groundwork and lay out the detailed plans for what exactly our movement is going to do, and what your movement is going to do, when the American people give us this enormous mission to save America.”
The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
“As we have said for over two years, Project 2025 does not represent any particular candidate or campaign,” a Project 2025 spokesperson said in a statement. “We are a coalition of over 110 conservative organizations providing policy and personnel recommendations for the next conservative president.”
“However, which recommendations are implemented will ultimately be up to the president, and we believe that president is President Trump,” the group said.
A Project 2025 spokesman said he could not comment on specific proposals.
Some of the changes proposed in Project 2025 could be implemented by presidential decree, but many would require approval from Congress, which could be difficult in a divided government.
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The project calls for several reforms to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), a federal program that provides money to low-income people to buy food for themselves and their families.
One Project 2025 proposal could mean more recipients would face work requirements to receive benefits. Another plan calls for closing a “loophole” that allows people who already receive other benefits, such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), to apply for food stamps.
The Biden administration’s move to boost food stamps for households during the pandemic has been described as a “significant overreach” by the project’s authors, who also urge the next conservative president to “veto efforts to turn federal school lunches into a benefit program.”
“SNAP/EBT Food Stamp Benefits Now Being Accepted” displays on a screen inside a Family Dollar store in Chicago, Illinois.
Daniel Acker | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Salam Bhatti, SNAP director at the Food Research and Action Center, said these changes will have a devastating impact on families.
“Cutting this critical component of our safety net would increase poverty-related preventable hunger, worse health outcomes, higher health care costs, and lower academic achievement for students whose families rely on SNAP to put food on the table,” Batty said.
Project 2025 calls for significant cuts to the U.S. Department of Education’s loan forgiveness program for federal student loan borrowers.
The bill would repeal Public Service Loan Forgiveness, which forgives nonprofit and government employees’ debts after 10 years of repaying them, and Borrower Protection Regulations, which provide a way for students who have been defrauded to receive debt relief.
Provisions from the project would also end the Biden administration’s new repayment plan for student loan borrowers, known as SAVE.
“If Donald Trump is given the opportunity to implement this right-wing manifesto, it will wreak havoc on the financial security of millions of student loan borrowers and their families,” said Aissa Canchola Banez, political director of Protect Borrowers Action.
Starting in 2025, dozens of provisions enacted by President Trump through the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) are scheduled to be repealed, including lowering federal income tax brackets, expanding the standard deduction, increasing the child tax credit, and expanding the estate and gift tax exemptions.
While President Trump has called for a full extension of the TCJA, Project 2025 has proposed a “simple two-rate individual tax system” of 15% and 30%, the latter of which would be taxed at the base wage on which Social Security benefits are derived, which would be around $168,600 in 2024.
The plan would also eliminate most deductions, tax credits and exemptions, including state and local taxes and education tax breaks.
Howard Gleckman, a senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, explained that if the tax bill were enacted, some taxpayers would see their taxes increase and others would see their taxes decrease, depending on their current income and tax credits, deductions and exemptions.
The plan outlines that the second phase could include some sort of consumption tax on goods and services, such as a domestic sales tax or a business transfer tax.
But historically, “sales taxes don’t have support in Congress,” Gleckman said.
Project 2025 would cut capital gains and qualified dividend taxes for high-income earners. The top tax rate, currently 20%, would rise to 15% under the proposal.
The plan would also eliminate the so-called net investment income tax (NIIT), which is an additional 3.8% tax on assets if your modified adjusted gross income (MAGI) exceeds $200,000 for single filers and $250,000 for married couples filing jointly. With the NIIT included, high-income earners currently pay a total of 23.8% on capital gains.
Mr Gleckman said the proposal, if enacted, would mean “a significant reduction in taxes for people who make money on investments”.
While retirement is not a primary focus of Project 2025, the plan does call for the introduction of a “universal savings account,” or USA, with an annual after-tax contribution limit of $15,000 that would be adjusted for inflation.
The tax treatment is similar to a Roth Individual Retirement Account, which, with some exceptions, allows tax-free withdrawal of earnings after age 59 1/2. USA, by contrast, is “highly flexible” with respect to investments, and earnings can be withdrawn “at any time and for any purpose,” according to the plan.
While some policy experts support USA, others argue that lower-income earners have a harder time making voluntary retirement contributions and would likely not benefit from the proposed increase in the annual cap.
“The top third of the population is well-served,” said Alicia Munnell, director of the Center for Retirement Studies at Boston University. “We don’t need to give them more savings assistance.”
In a July 9 post on X, Project 2025 said the plan does not advocate for cuts to Social Security.
But the order calls balancing the federal budget a “critical goal.”
“These two statements cannot be consistent,” Manell said, amid growing concerns about the solvency of the Social Security trust fund.
The Social Security Trust Fund is projected to run out in 2035, the annual Board of Trustees report showed in May. Benefits could be cut by at least 20% by that date if Congress doesn’t act.
