If former President Donald Trump is elected and enacts the controversial Project 2025, Arizonans can expect to see worse taxes, social security, health care and much more, according to a new report.
Project 2025 is a right-wing blueprint created by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, to reshape the United States federal government and consolidate executive power if Trump wins in November. The list of policy plans was created in large part by former Trump aides and allies.
The Heritage Foundation created the document in partnership with more than 100 other conservative groups, many with extreme views on abortion, taxes, immigration and federal agencies. Proposals in Project 2025 include completely banning abortion nationwide, bringing the U.S. Department of Justice under the direct control of the president, increased immigration enforcement and sweeping cuts to federal agencies.
Trump has disavowed Project 2025 on his social media platform, Truth Social, and has gone so far as to say he has no idea what it is or who wrote it, but many have pointed to connections the project has to members of Trump’s inner circle, including former top Trump aide John McEntee, who is said to be one of the main leaders behind the proposal.
Other senior Trump administration officials have also been involved in the proposal. Russel Vought, Trump’s former budget chief and one of the other key architects of the proposal, was named policy director for the Republican National Committee in May, shortly after the GOP effectively became an arm of the Trump campaign amid a leadership shakeup.
And in 2022, Trump took a private plane flight with Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts to a Heritage Foundation conference where Trump delivered a keynote address in which he referenced the group’s work to craft policy proposals for his administration.
“This is a great group and they’re going to lay the groundwork and detail plans for exactly what our movement will do,” Trump said in his speech. Reporting by CNN found that 140 people who have worked for Trump are directly involved in Project 2025, and more work for the Heritage Foundation.
And The Washington Post reported this month that Roberts said that he personally briefed Trump on Project 2025: “I personally have talked to President Trump about Project 2025, because my role in the project has been to make sure that all of the candidates who have responded to our offer for a briefing on Project 2025 get one from me.”
Project 2025 also has ties to Arizona, with the Scottsdale-based anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ Alliance Defending Freedom and the Phoenix-based Turning Point USA having helped to draft it.
Both TPUSA and Alliance Defending Freedom are also connected to a secretive Christian policy group that has pushed similar talking points and also have promoted lies about the election.
Arizona under Project 2025
The Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, compiled information on a number of policy proposals laid out in the nearly 1,000-page Project 2025 document to show the impacts each potential change could have on the nation and individual states.
Under the proposal, a typical family of four in Arizona would see an increase of $2,720 a year in their taxes, while households making more than $10 million would see a tax cut that averages to $1.5 million each year.
The plan also supports plans to cut Social Security by raising the retirement age for 73% of Arizona’s residents. Project 2025’s changes to Social Security were mirrored by the Republican Study Committee, which includes members of Project 2025, which would raise the Social Security retirement age from 67 to 69. CAP estimates that a median-wage retiree could lose between $46,000 to $100,000 over the course of 10 years.
It would also hit the pocketbooks of the 388,850 Arizonans who use Medicare by raising the cost of prescription drugs and eliminating out-of-pocket cost limits. It also calls for prohibiting the government from negotiating lower drug prices and suggests putting “limits” or “caps” on Medicare and Medicaid coverage.
Women’s health care, specifically abortion and access to free emergency contraception, would be eliminated under the plan. Project 2025 calls for the Department of Justice to use a pair of laws from 1873 and 1909 to criminalize the mailing of medication for abortions, as well as instruments and equipment used to perform surgical abortions.
This would effectively create a nationwide ban. The right-wing blueprint also instructs the DOJ to take legal action against any local official who refuses to bring cases against doctors or women who violate any abortion ban. Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes and Republican Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell have both said they would not prosecute women seeking an abortion in certain circumstances.
Currently, approximately 16,285 low-income children in Arizona get no-cost childcare through the Head Start program. Project 2025 proposes eliminating the program.
On education, Project 2025 proposes increases to the payments made by those who have gotten student loans. The Saving on a Valuable Education Plan currently allows borrowers to pay a lower rate based on income, but would be eliminated.
This means that the 148,000 borrowers in Arizona enrolled in SAVE could end up paying between $2,700 to $4,100 more a year.
Project 2025 also proposes eliminating the U.S. Department of Education, along with Title I funding for low-income schools. Approximately 4,295 teaching positions in Arizona that are funded through Title I would be eliminated. Those teachers serve an estimated 97,931 students, according to CAP.
Christian Nationalist policies
Critics have argued that the proposals are a way to implement Christian nationalist policies under a Trump administration.
Christian nationalism is a political movement that is based on a belief that God intended America to be a Christian nation — one without religious pluralism — and that Christians should control all levels of government and society.
Project 2025 dips its toes into both Christian Nationalism and Dominionism, which holds that Christians should take total control over most aspects of society.
Certain Dominionist beliefs, such as the so-called “Seven Mountain Mandate,” which draws from the biblical book of Revelation and requires Christians to invade the “seven spheres” of society, are ideas that have been embraced and promoted by people like TPUSA’s Charlie Kirk.
One of the biggest promoters of Christian nationalism and dominionism has been disgraced Ret. Gen. Michael Flynn, Trump’s first national security adviser, who has claimed that he is waging “spiritual warfare” and building an “army of God.” Flynn is also known to associate with other known Dominionist groups.
Flynn helped fund the Arizona Republican Senate’s partisan “audit” of the 2020 election and an organization he co-founded sponsored a series of misinformation filled committee meetings in Arizona focused on COVID-19.
Arizona Republican State Sen. Janae Shamp is a fervent supporter of Flynn and has a Christian nationalist flag on her desk at the Capitol. Shamp, a conservative from Surprise, has also shared a number of QAnon posts on her Facebook page, including some linked to neo-Nazis and antisemites.
A close ally of Shamp’s, Sen. Steve Montenegro, R-Goodyear, works with the Flynn aligned The America Project. Trump has also spoken about bringing Flynn back if reelected.
This story was first published by Arizona Mirror, which is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Ashley Murray contributed to this report.
