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Ambitious "Project 2025" Seeks Sweeping Government Overhaul Under Republican Administration
Project 2025 has become one of the most ambitious—and controversial—proposals to reshape American governance in modern times. Unveiled by the Heritage Foundation and backed by a coalition of over 100 conservative groups, this nearly thousand-page blueprint envisions a sweeping overhaul of the federal government if a Republican president takes office in January 2025. Its stated mission is nothing short of a root-and-branch restructuring: dismantle the so-called “administrative state,” reassert presidential control, and roll back everything from agency independence to civil service protections.
As Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts put it, “all federal employees should answer to the president.” At Project 2025’s core lies an aggressive reading of the “unitary executive” theory, which claims the president should exercise direct oversight of the entire executive branch. The project calls for the elimination of the independence of agencies like the Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Federal Trade Commission, and the Federal Communications Commission. This would mean every official answers directly to the Oval Office, erasing barriers that, until now, protected agencies from political interference.
Concrete examples of this ambition spill across the plan’s 30 dense chapters. According to the policy document “Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise,” Project 2025 proposes the immediate dismissal of all State Department leadership and their replacement by ideologically vetted appointees. Kiron Skinner, who led the chapter on the State Department, wrote that career officials should be replaced by those more loyal to the president’s agenda—noting she considered most State staff as “too left-wing.”
The implications run deep for the federal workforce. Project 2025 reinvigorates the controversial “Schedule F” system, which would allow the mass reclassification of up to a million civil service positions to at-will federal jobs. As the National Federation of Federal Employees explains, everyone in these positions could be fired and replaced at the president’s discretion. This would gut long-standing protections intended to shield government workers from political retribution or interference, paving the way for a loyalist bureaucracy on “Day One.”
Some of the earliest developments since the 2024 election have been dramatic. The new administration, working with an Elon Musk–led Department of Government Efficiency, has already attempted to dismantle entire agencies like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the U.S. Agency for International Development. According to Politico, Musk’s team eliminated the CFPB and USAID, fired tens of thousands of federal workers, and rapidly imposed return-to-office mandates intended to shrink the government’s physical footprint. The White House described the effort as making government “more efficient and effective,” with President Trump issuing an executive order for agencies to hire only one new worker for every four who leave.
Critics, including the American Civil Liberties Union, warn that Project 2025 poses a grave threat to civil liberties and democratic norms. The ACLU highlights that the blueprint would roll back protections for LGBTQ rights, reproductive rights, and racial equity, while rolling out aggressive new policies on immigration, policing, and free speech. The Center for Progressive Reform is tracking these moves, reporting devastating consequences upon workers, the environment, and the rights of millions as the changes ripple through every U.S. state and territory.
Supporters say Project 2025 is necessary to rid Washington of bias, inefficiency, and “woke” influence. Critics counter that it is, in the words of one legal expert for The Atlantic, “an attempt to intellectually retrofit a rationale for Trumpism.” They note that many proposals may require approval from Congress or survive
Published on 1 week, 5 days ago