Project 2025 threatens health care, education and more for Pennsylvanians

A right-wing plan to completely overhaul the federal government if former President Donald Trump is reelected — including instituting a national abortion ban, building an abortion surveillance system, raising prescription drug prices by privatizing Medicare, and dismantling the Department of Education — would be disastrous for Pennsylvanians and would upend life for millions of people across the commonwealth, political leaders and residents said.

Project 2025, a 922-page plan for a far-right takeover of the U.S. government, was created by a coalition of extremist groups spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank helmed by a president who recently warned of bloodshed if the left attempted to intervene in what he described as a second American Revolution.

While Trump is attempting to distance himself from Project 2025, educators and Democratic leaders are saying it’s emblematic of the kind of authoritarian control Trump hopes to build in the U.S. should he win a second term. Numerous former Trump administration officials contributed to the plan, and the former president’s name is mentioned 312 times in the document.

“It’s really scary,” Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, said of Project 2025. “It is an agenda to take away more of your freedoms. It is an agenda to use the police and the military in this country to settle scores with his [Trump’s] enemies. It’s an agenda to pollute our air. And it’s an agenda to undermine our public health and our public safety.”

Shapiro made his comments while campaigning with Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in support of Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential run in Ambler, Pennsylvania, on July 29, and his concerns follow a cascade of criticism from doctors, educators, and others. The governor’s statements also follow Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts rallying support for Project 2025 in Pennsylvania earlier this year.

While speaking at the Pennsylvania Leadership Conference in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, in April, Roberts described his dream scenario for November’s election: a Trump win, followed by the implementation of a plan that includes dismantling the Federal Bureau of Investigation, little to no federal regulations surrounding natural gas drilling — something that has wreaked havoc on Pennsylvania’s environment and on residents’ health — and the end of the federal Department of Education.

“I suspect if Project 2025, with all of its associated organizations, has any influence on the next administration, you’re going to see the following glorious things happen,” Roberts said. “We’re going to see a new FBI director who ‘select-alt-deletes’ the legal code that created the FBI and starts from scratch.”

“But, as you might imagine, I have a personal favorite, and that is, once and for all, we’re going to eliminate, tear out root and branch, the most rotten part of the federal government, which is the U.S. Department of Education,” Roberts added.

Lori McFarland, a retired teacher from Upper Milford Township and the Lehigh County Democratic Party chair, said Pennsylvanians would be adamantly opposed to terminating the Department of Education, as well as the other initiatives spelled out in Project 2025.

“We are a very diverse commonwealth, and if people in Pennsylvania understood what the true meaning of all of this is, they’re going to want to have nothing to do with it,” McFarland said.

McFarland said she is especially alarmed about Project 2025’s support for a national abortion ban and severely limiting access to reproductive health. The document calls for the Department of Health and Human Services to become the “Department of Life,” which would reject abortion as health care and would pressure states to submit data on every abortion performed.

McFarland pointed out that abortion is legal through the 23rd week of pregnancy in Pennsylvania, though that could change if Project 2025 is implemented.

“Here in Pennsylvania, we don’t support this,” McFarland said of outlawing abortion.

“But if the federal government takes over, then Gov. Shapiro isn’t going to be able to do much,” she said of Pennsylvania’s governor who has been a staunch supporter of abortion rights.

Ronna Dewey, the state program director for Red, Wine and Blue, a grassroots group that aims to engage suburban women in politics, said her organization has been raising awareness about Project 2025 and believes knowledge about the far-right plan will drive people to vote in November’s election.

“If we look at Project 2025, there’s clear attacks that are coming,” Dewey told the Pennsylvania Independent at the Shapiro-Whitmer event in Ambler.

In July, Trump told a gathering of Christian conservatives, “I love you, you got to get out and vote. In four years, you don’t have to vote again. We’ll have it fixed so good, you’re not going to have to vote.”

“I think everyone needs to take that extremely seriously if they want to preserve our democracy,” Dewey said.