Mandate for Leadership | The Conservative Promise | Project 2025 Presidential Transition Project (Part 1)
“The 2025 Presidential Transition Project is the conservative movement’s unified effort to be ready for the next conservative Administration to govern at 12:00 noon, January 20, 2025.”
This is the opening statement and clarion call from “Project 2025,” a conservative manifesto and blueprint for the policies that will dramatically shrink the infrastructure of the Federal government, drive deregulation, cut taxes to targeted communities, rollback social welfare programs, and implement judicial reforms to advance ultra-conservative values.
This 900-page document is a rebranding of the original “Mandate for Leadership” that was presented to then President-elect Ronald Reagan in 1980 and served as the foundation for what was known as “Reaganomics.” It follows a similar format of the original document, serving as a collection of individual articles by conservative thought leaders and former government officials, outlining specific policy initiatives, agency-by-agency for the incoming President.
Just as it was structured in 1980, each section of this iteration of “Mandate for Leadership” is written by leaders in trade associations, think tanks, privately funded entities at universities, and nonprofit organizations that play an instrumental role in developing and promoting these ultra-conservative ideologies. It is important to note the organizations listed in the “Acknowledgements,” many of which have innocuous sounding names but drive policies that could be detrimental to your businesses and communities. Further, it is important to identify the authors of the agency chapters, as they are the people likely positioned to take leadership roles in an upcoming Administration, at the same Federal agencies they are writing about, to implement these recommendations.
The Heritage Foundation’s 1980 “Mandate for Leadership” and the “Project 2025” version of the “Mandate for Leadership” reflect the Heritage Foundation’s consistent commitment to conservative principles, advocating for limited government, free-market economics, strong national defense, judicial reform, “traditional values,” and deregulation across the Federal government. While many of the recommendations in the “Project 2025” update is
intended to build on these longstanding conservative goals, implementing the recommendations in the document would have a significantly deleterious, and possibly existential impact on small and minority businesses given our current political, economic, and judicial climate.
Limited Government
• 1980: Emphasizes reducing the size and scope of the federal government by cutting federal spending, reducing regulations, and promoting privatization of government services.
• Project 2025: Continues to advocate for limiting government intervention (e.g. eliminating agencies or reducing the authority of anti-trust agencies, such as the Federal Trade Commission, with regulatory oversight of corporations and consumer protections), significantly reduce the power and influence of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), promoting “decentralization of power” to states and local governments (e.g. eliminating the Department of Education), and reducing the size of the Federal workforce (e.g. career civil servants) by 50% within the first year and 75% over four years.
Economic Policies
• 1980: Advocates for significant tax cuts, deregulation, and free-market policies to stimulate economic growth and reduce government intervention in the economy.
• Project 2025: Maintains the focus on tax reductions (e.g. extends 2017 tax cuts), deregulation, and support certain free-market capitalism policies that would give a disproportionate advantage to large businesses over small businesses (market dominance, capital access, reduced regulatory oversight).
Judicial and Legal Reform
• 1980: Promotion of conservative judicial appointments and an originalist interpretation of the Constitution, along with tort reform to reduce litigation costs.
• Project 2025: Continues to advocate for the appointment of conservative judges, judicial reform to align with originalist principles, and reducing the influence of progressive legal interpretations. This has even greater implications given the recent Supreme Court decisions that eliminate racial considerations in higher education (Students for Fair Admission v Harvard; North Carolina), student loan relief, Clean Water Act, Presidential immunity, reproductive rights, etc. Social and Cultural Policies
• 1980: Opposition to affirmative action and welfare reform and promotes “traditional family values.”
• Project 2025: Maintains a stance against affirmative action and other progressive social policies, while advocating for policies that support traditional values and reforming welfare programs. The proposal would eliminate any mandate that promotes DEI or makes references to sexual orientation and gender identity from all federal operations including federal rules, agency regulations, contracts, grants, and legislation. This includes abandoning efforts to advance and legally defend affirmative action and DEI policies within military academies and federal minority contracting programs.
Education
• 1980: Advocacy for school choice, including support for vouchers and charter schools, to introduce competition and improve educational outcomes.
• Project 2025: Eliminates the Department of Education and continues to promote school choice and policies that reduce federal control over education, especially regarding DEI policies, emphasizing local and parental control over educational decisions.
Environmental and Energy Policies
• 1980: Support for deregulating environmental protections to reduce compliance costs for businesses and promote energy independence through increased domestic production.
• Project 2025: Continues to advocate for reducing environmental regulations, promoting energy independence, and utilizing market-based solutions for environmental challenges. This would essentially overturn the Justice 40 Initiative as well as the policies and contracts implemented through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) and Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Further, this would have additional implications given the recent Supreme Court ruling to overturn the 50-year Chevron doctrine,
eliminating the presumptive deference to Federal subject matter experts’ interpretation of legal statute.
Labor and Employment Policies
• 1980: Efforts to weaken labor unions, promote right-to-work laws, and reduce workplace regulations.
• Project 2025: Continues to support reducing the power of labor unions, promoting labor market flexibility, and reducing regulatory burdens on businesses. This includes outlawing public sector unions, elimination of prevailing wage laws and project labor agreements on federal projects, abolish federal overtime pay laws, and eliminating the federal minimum wage.
Overall, Project 2025’s proposed policies could lead to reduced support, increased competition, and greater economic challenges for minority-owned businesses. The elimination of affirmative action and minority-focused programs, combined with broader deregulation and changes to labor laws, could create a more challenging
environment for these businesses to thrive and compete.
The proposal includes plans to abandon affirmative action and minority contracting programs that have historically provided critical opportunities for minority-owned businesses to compete for and secure government contracts. The attack of regulatory protections for minority businesses would remove protections that help ensure fair competition and prevent discriminatory practices.
Finally, small and minority-owned businesses, already more financially vulnerable, are likely to face greater challenges in a market increasingly dominated by larger corporations with more resources.