The more I read about Project 2025 the more unhinged it looks. There are only so many ways you can describe US government departments as failing, too expensive and instruments of the left. Project 2025 exhausts them all in the first couple of the 30 chapters. After that, it becomes totally repetitive and incredibly boring, to be frank. The private sector is always right, according to the authors, and the government is always wrong, something we in this country might take issue with after our experience with the water industry, the rail network, power generation and various other privatised utilities.
The Heritage Foundation seems to think the US has a deep state, operated and controlled by the left and deliberately thwarting any elected government of the right. Some Tories in this country have often made similar arguments. Liz Truss being one of them. It’s a recipe for more and more division.
Some proposals suggest what on the surface looks like a total reorganisation of the federal government departments related to Homeland Security, for example:
"U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) be combined with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE); U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS); the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR); and the Department of Justice (DOJ) Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) and Office of Immigration Litigation (OIL) into a standalone border and immigration agency at the Cabinet level (more than 100,000 employees, making it the third largest department measured by manpower)."
This is just the first of seven bullet points with similar sweeping changes (page 133). If they were implemented I think it would take a couple of years to settle down at least.
Then we’re told Elon Musk is to cut $2 trillion out of a $6.75 trillion annual budget but two policies appear to call for far MORE spending. One is the deporting of 13 million undocumented migrants which has been estimated to cost $968 billion over a decade. On this point, Trump has indicated there is no limit to what he intends to spend: “There is no price tag, " he has said.
The other area is defence where the call is to significantly raise spending on both orthodox and nuclear weapons:
"U.S. defense strategy must identify China unequivocally as the top priority for U.S. defense planning while modernizing and expanding the U.S. nuclear arsenal and sustaining an efficient and effective counterterrorism enterprise. U.S. allies must also step up, with some joining the United States in taking on China in Asia while others take more of a lead in dealing with threats from Russia in Europe, Iran, the Middle East, and North Korea. The reality is that achieving these goals will require more spending on defense, both by the United States and by its allies, as well as active support for reindustrialization and more support for allies’ productive capacity so that we can scale our free world efforts together." (added emphasis)
And another recommendation for defence is this rather curious example (page 103):
"Eliminate Marxist indoctrination and divisive critical race theory programs and abolish newly established diversity, equity, and inclusion offices and staff."
Who in the sprawling US defence sector is indoctrinating people with Marxism? I doubt this is happening but anything that smacks of any sort of enlightened HR policies is automatically labelled Marxism.
This is from the foreword (page xiv)
"It’s not 1980. In 2023, the game has changed. The long march of cultural Marxism through our institutions has come to pass. The federal government is a behemoth, weaponized against American citizens and conservative values, with freedom and liberty under siege as never before."
One chapter (page 283) appears to suggest the entire government deficit, amounting to $31 trillion, is down to Medicare and Medicaid which together have cost $17.8 trillion over a 53-year period, during which the national debt increased by $17.9 trillion:
"HHS [Health and Human Services] is home to Medicare and Medicaid, the principal drivers of our $31 trillion national debt. When Congress passed and President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law these programs, they were set on autopilot with no plan for how to pay for them. The first year that Medicare spending was visible on the books was 1967.
"From that point on through 2020—according to the American Main Street Initiative’s analysis of official federal tallies—Medicare and Medicaid combined cost $17.8 trillion, while our combined federal deficits over that same span were $17.9 trillion."
"In essence, our deficit problem is a Medicare and Medicaid problem."
These are not like the NHS but are as close as America gets to a publicly funded health service. The conclusion reached by the swivel-eyed authors is that because the two costs are similar, they must be related. It's crazy.
Medicare is national health insurance for people 65 or older, and some people under 65 with certain disabilities or conditions run by a government agency called the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. So, just for the aged.
Medicaid on the other hand is a state-funded programme to help cover medical costs for some low-income groups. And although the US government has general rules that all State Medicaid programs must follow, each State runs its own programme, which means eligibility requirements and benefits can vary.
Talks have already started to cut these programmes. It’s hard to believe the recipients of this state-funded health care are all Democrats and Harris supporters. Some, perhaps even a majority, must be Republicans and MAGA Trump supporters who have apparently voted to cut access to their own affordable health care. It makes zero sense to me, and probably not to them either once they realise what's about to happen.
Gideon Rachman, writing in the FT says : Trump’s attack on the enemy within will delight America’s real foes
"Trump’s Maga shock troops believe that they can only make their country great again by first destroying their internal enemies. Trump has said the 'enemy from within' is 'more dangerous' than Russia and China. His appointees are willing to turn America’s institutions upside down in the pursuit of vengeance.
"Pete Hegseth, Trump’s nominee as defence secretary, has written that 'sometimes the fight must begin with a struggle against domestic enemies'. In a podcast, he demanded: 'Any general, any admiral . . . that was involved in diversity, equity and inclusion programmes or woke shit has got to go.'
"Reports are already circulating that Trump plans to establish a 'warrior board' empowered to force out senior military officers, replacing them with loyalists. His team are also reportedly considering court-martialling some military leaders for their roles in the chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan."
Rachman says Trump’s assault on US institutions will not Make America Great Again but will make it more like Russia and China. I think he's right.
