If former President Donald Trump is elected and enacts the controversial project in 2025, Arizonans could face worse taxes, benefits, health care and more, according to a new report.
Project 2025 is a right-wing plan by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, to reshape the U.S. federal government and consolidate executive power if Trump wins in November. The list of policy plans was largely compiled by former Trump aides and allies.
The Heritage Foundation produced the document in collaboration with more than 100 other conservative groups, many of which have extreme views on abortion, taxes, immigration and federal agencies. Proposals in Project 2025 include a complete nationwide ban on abortion, placing the U.S. Department of Justice directly under the president, increased immigration enforcement and drastic cuts to federal agencies.
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Trump has withdrawn from the 2025 project on his social media platform Truth Social and has gone so far as to say he has no idea what it is or who wrote it, but many have pointed to the project’s ties to members of Trump’s inner circle, including former top Trump adviser John McEntee, who is said to have one of the most important leaders behind the proposal.
Other senior Trump administration officials were also involved in the proposal. Russel Vought, Trump’s former budget chief and one of the other key architects of the proposal, was named Political Director of the Republican National Committee in Mayshortly after the Republicans became a de facto arm of the Trump campaign in a restructuring of the party leadership.
And in 2022 Trump took a private flight with the President of the Heritage Foundation, Kevin Roberts to a Heritage Foundation conference where Trump delivered a keynote speech highlighting the group’s work in developing policy proposals for his administration.
“This is a great group and they will lay the groundwork and develop detailed plans for exactly what our movement will do,” Trump said in his speech. Reporting by CNN found that 140 people who worked for Trump are directly involved in Project 2025, and even more work for the Heritage Foundation.
And The Washington Post reported this month that Roberts said he Trump personally informed about Project 2025: “I spoke personally with President Trump about Project 2025 because my role in that project was to make sure that all candidates who responded to our offer for a briefing on Project 2025 received a briefing from me.”
Project 2025 also has ties to Arizona, with the Scottsdale-based anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ alliance Defending Freedom and the Phoenix-based Turning Point USA to have contributed,.
Both TPUSA and Alliance Defending Freedom are also linked to a mysterious Christian political group who have made similar arguments and also spread lies about the election.
The Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, compiled information on a series of policy proposals set out in the nearly 1,000-page Document on Project 2025 to show the impact of any possible change on the nation and Individual states.
Under this proposal, a typical family of four in Arizona would face a tax increase of $2,720 per year, while households earning over $10 million would benefit from a tax cut of an average of $1.5 million per year.
The plan also supports plans to cut Social Security by raising the retirement age for 73% of Arizona residents. Project 2025’s changes to Social Security were adopted by the Republican Study Committee, which includes members of Project 2025, which would raise the Social Security retirement age from 67 to 69. The CAP estimates that a median-wage retiree could lose between $46,000 and $100,000 over the course of 10 years.
It would also hit the wallets of the 388,850 Arizona residents who use Medicare by increasing prescription drug costs and eliminating out-of-pocket caps. It also calls for prohibiting the government from negotiating lower drug prices and proposes “limits” or “caps” on Medicare and Medicaid coverage.
Women’s health care, particularly abortion and access to free emergency contraception, would be eliminated under the plan. Project 2025 calls on the Justice Department to use two laws from 1873 and 1909 to criminalize the shipping of abortion drugs and instruments and equipment used to perform surgical abortions.
This would effectively amount to a nationwide ban. The right-wing plan also calls for the Justice Department to take legal action against any local official who refuses to initiate proceedings against doctors or women who violate an abortion ban. Attorney General Kris Mayes and Republicans Rachel Mitchell, Attorney in Maricopa County Both have stated that they would not prosecute women who seek abortions under certain circumstances.
Currently, about 16,285 low-income children in Arizona receive free child care through the Head Start program. Project 2025 proposes eliminating the program.
In the area of education, Project 2025 proposes increasing payments for student loan borrowers. The Saving on a Valuable Education Plan currently allows borrowers to pay a lower interest rate based on income, but is slated to be eliminated.
This means that the 148,000 Arizona borrowers enrolled in SAVE could end up paying between $2,700 and $4,100 more per year.
Project 2025 also proposes eliminating the U.S. Department of Education and Title I funding for low-income schools. About 4,295 teaching positions in Arizona funded through Title I would be eliminated. These teachers teach an estimated 97,931 students, according to CAP.
Critics argue that the proposals are a way Implementation of Christian-nationalist policies under a Trump administration.
Christian nationalism is a political movement based on the belief that God intended America to be a Christian nation—without religious pluralism—and that Christians should control all levels of government and society.
The 2025 Project addresses both Christian nationalism and dominionism, which holds that Christians should take complete control of most aspects of society.
Certain dominionist beliefs, such as the so-called “Seven-Mountain Mandate”, which refers to the biblical book of Revelation and requires Christians to penetrate into the “seven spheres” of societyare ideas that accepted and promoted by people like Charlie Kirk from TPUSA.
One of the biggest sponsors of Christian nationalism and dominionism has fallen into disgrace Retired General Michael FlynnTrump’s first national security adviser, who has claimed he is waging a “spiritual war” and building an “army of God.” Flynn is also known for the connection with other well-known Dominionist groups.
Flynn helped fund the Republican Arizona Senate’s partisan “audit” of the 2020 election, and Organization he co-founded sponsored a number of Incorrect information filled out Committee meetings in Arizona focused on COVID-19.
Republicans from Arizona State Senator Janae Shamp is a ardent supporter of Flynn and has a Christian nationalist flag on her desk in the Capitol. Shamp, a conservative from Surprise, has also shared a number of QAnon posts on her Facebook page, including some with links to Neo-Nazis and anti-Semites.
A close ally of Shamp, Sen. Steve Montenegro, R-Goodyear, works with the Flynn aligned The America Project. Trump also spoke about Bring Flynn back in case of re-election.
