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This dangerous, sweeping takeover of a society that’s made huge strides toward equality over many decades threatens to take us back to a “Gilded Age,” where only the very wealthiest white families and corporations benefit from government policy.
Maybe you’ve heard some of the buzz about “Project 2025.” What is it — and what would it mean for you and your family?
Project 2025 is a proposed “transition plan for a new Republican administration” put together by the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank. It’s an in-depth list of what conservative groups will push for in the event of a Trump victory in the fall.
And it poses serious dangers to families and the middle class. It would drastically defund social programs that millions rely on, including Medicaid, Medicare, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). It would defund public schools, roll back housing assistance, and cut regulations that protect consumers and the environment.
It’s a dense document, but here are six key takeaways on this pending catastrophe for working people.
1. Millions of Americans will lose health care.
Project 2025 not only slashes Medicaid but would entirely eliminate the Affordable Care Act, the popular healthcare program that helps Americans afford care and guarantees coverage to customers with pre-existing medical conditions. This would cause millions to lose their coverage.
Though we have yet to fully realize the dream of equality and justice for all, we can only achieve it by expanding the hard-won, effective social progress we’ve achieved so far.
The plan also rolls back the Inflation Reduction Act provision allowing Medicare to negotiate lower prescription drug prices. Currently, the law caps life-saving insulin at $35 per month and caps out-of-pocket Medicare costs at $2,000 annually. Care for seniors will get a lot more expensive if those protections are taken away.
2. Children will be sicker, poorer, and hungrier.
Children, especially those in low-income households, would be harmed the most. Their reduced access to health care could lead to higher rates of illnesses, developmental delays, long-term inequities in opportunities, and even preventable deaths.
Proposed cuts to food assistance programs, such as free school meals and SNAP, would increase food insecurity for millions of Americans — especially children. And children who experience hunger and malnutrition are at a greater risk of long-term cognitive and physical developmental challenges, which can poorly affect their life outcomes.
3. Public schools will suffer.
Project 2025 calls to eliminate the Department of Education, which funds programs for students with disabilities and meals for hungry kids, helps parents get before care and after care, enforces civil rights protections, and helps people pursue postsecondary education.
This extremist agenda would also eliminate Head Start. The subsidized preschool program, which has served over 40 million kids, promotes early childhood development and provides childcare to parents who are working or studying to escape poverty.
Instead, public funding would be funneled into wasteful private school vouchers and charter schools.
4. Millions of families will be criminalized.
Mixed-status families, which include both citizens and undocumented immigrants, face the unthinkable reality of a loved one being deported under Project 2025. And families that include LGBTQ+ members face the dystopian reality of discrimination and criminalization.
5. Food, water, and air will be poisoned.
Project 2025 also drastically reduces or eliminates regulations that protect our communities, workplaces, and environment. This is especially dangerous for people in low-income areas and communities of color, which are more often located near industrial areas and exposed to pollution and environmental hazards.
6. Only the wealthy win.
Project 2025’s other main goal is yet more tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, which would starve public investments and codify inequality by only helping those who need it the least.
This dangerous, sweeping takeover of a society that’s made huge strides toward equality over many decades threatens to take us back to a “Gilded Age,” where only the very wealthiest white families and corporations benefit from government policy.
Though we have yet to fully realize the dream of equality and justice for all, we can only achieve it by expanding the hard-won, effective social progress we’ve achieved so far. Project 2025 is a blueprint to end that American Dream.
"Opponents of democracy are terrified that they will lose again at the ballot box in November and are rushing to right-wing judges to hamstring democratic governance," said one observer.
A Republican-appointed U.S. federal judge in Georgia raised eyebrows and objections Thursday after taking what observers called the "unprecedented" step of blocking a rule that hasn't even been finalized in order to stop the Biden administration from implementing a plan to deliver promised debt relief to millions of student borrowers.
U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of Georgia James Randal Hall issued an order blocking the Biden administration's proposed federal student debt relief rule. Hall—an appointee of former President George W. Bush—granted a motion by a coalition of right-wing state attorneys general to preempt the rule's eventual implementation.
"The court is substituting its judgment for those elected to serve the public," American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten said in response to the ruling. "It subverts the democratic process and denies relief to student loan borrowers, many of whom rely on debt relief programs already advanced by the Biden-Harris administration."
"This court's unprecedented decision to block a rule that does not yet exist is not only bad for the 30 million borrowers who were relying on the administration to deliver much-needed relief," she continued. "It's a harbinger of the chaos and corruption right-wing judges seek to force on the American people."
Mike Pierce, executive director of the Student Borrower Protection Center—which called the ruling "dangerous and unprecedented"—denounced Hall for preventing the Biden administration from delivering student debt relief "even though no plan has been finalized."
"This is an extraordinary break with precedent and a brazen move by the conservative movement to shift even more power to unelected, unaccountable red-state judges," he said. "Opponents of democracy are terrified that they will lose again at the ballot box in November and are rushing to right-wing judges to hamstring democratic governance."
"This is the clearest sign yet that Project 2025 is already terrorizing student loan borrowers through a slow-moving judicial coup," Pierce added, referring to a conservative coalition's agenda for a far-right takeover of the federal government—which critics warn would worsen the U.S. student debt crisis.
Biden's proposal would forgive some or all student debt for around 30 million borrowers who have been repaying undergraduate loans for at least 20 years, or graduate loans for 25 years.
Hall's order is based on what he said was the plaintiffs' "substantial likelihood of success on the merits given the rule's lack of statutory authority" and U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona's "attempt to implement a rule contrary to normal procedures."
"This is especially true in light of the recent rulings across the country striking down similar federal student loan forgiveness plans," he added.
The U.S. Supreme Court's right-wing supermajority last year struck down Biden's initial plan to relieve up to $20,000 in federal scholastic debt for around 40 million borrowers, and last month the justices kept in place a sweeping suspension of the administration's Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) program, which aims to lower monthly repayments and hasten loan forgiveness.
"I reckon the U.S. Supreme Court does not like millions of people being able to afford to make payments on their student loans," said one journalist who had benefited from the SAVE program.
Millions of student loan borrowers whose monthly payments had been reduced by U.S. President Joe Biden's latest attempt to achieve debt relief were thrown into limbo Wednesday as the right-wing majority on the Supreme Court ruled in favor of a sweeping suspension of the president's policy.
After several Republican-led states filed lawsuits against the Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) program, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit ruled last month that the program should be paused while it evaluated the merits of the case.
The Biden administration had asked the high court to clear the way for SAVE to go back into effect, allowing 8 million Americans enrolled in the program to make monthly loan payments based on their incomes.
Mike Pierce, executive director of the Student Borrower Protection Center, said the Supreme Court "bought into the 8th Circuit's legal fiction that pausing affordable payments is 'preserving the status quo,'" issuing a ruling he denounced as "bullshit."
Under SAVE, which has already cleared debts for 400,000 borrowers, the Biden administration reduced monthly payments for undergraduate loans to 5% of the borrower's discretionary income, down from 10%. Loans of $12,000 or less were to be canceled after 10 years instead of 20-25 years, as long as the borrower made required payments.
The administration argued that the program was in accordance with a 1993 law allowing the secretary of education to establish "income contingent repayment" plans based on "the appropriate portion of the annual income of the borrower."
After the lower court's earlier ruling, Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said the court had rejected "a practice of providing loan forgiveness that goes back 30 years."
Ashton Pittman, an editor for the Mississippi Free Press, said the program had reduced his monthly student loan payments so that he was "finally able to reliably make them each month."
"But I reckon the U.S. Supreme Court does not like millions of people being able to afford to make payments on their student loans," said Pittman.
The Debt Collective, a national student loan borrowers union, suggested the latest ruling—which comes over a year after the Supreme Court struck down a broader student debt relief plan from Biden—shows that the fight for debt forgiveness cannot be won through the federal court system.
The Debt Collective has joined progressive lawmakers and other groups in calling for the Department of Education to cut ties with the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority (MOHELA), which services federal student loans and which Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey said would lose revenue if student debt cancellation is allowed to move forward.
"Biden is losing in court because he is not being politically or legally savvy," said the group after the 8th Circuit ruling was announced. "He should fire MOHELA and issue cancellation swiftly and automatically through an executive order and issue pause."