Project 2025: Looting and Booting at the Department of Treasury
Project 2025 continues to make news, as more news organizations and citizen activist groups delve into the details and the personalities behind this roadmap for a second Trump administration.
The Heritage Foundation folks at the heart of this effort as detailed in Mandate for Leadership 2025 like to say it would apply to any conservative administration; its core recommendations are indeed largely a mish mash of reactionary wet dreams.
But, as is true for anything to do with today's GOP, it’s all about/for/of Trump.
The actions called for throughout the document are based upon experiences from Donald Trump’s first term. President Biden’s name and policies (375) are actually mentioned more than Trump’s (312); the overall tone of disgust in the document is an obvious attempt to mirror the former president’s persona. A majority of those credited with authoring its various sections served in the 45th presidential administration, not to mention that they would be prime choices for cabinet and subordinate positions should he retake the office.
Given the Republican nominee’s unwillingness to provide detail about his vision in favor of personal attacks and bold-faced lies about reality, it’s no wonder that the words “Project 2025” have become shorthand for what a future under Trump would look like.
Key Project 2025 leader Russ Vought was the target of a faux-journalist “interview” that garnered some media attention this week. All in all, there were no surprises; only pithy representations of things already documented elsewhere… Like Trump’s ongoing approval of the effort and the current effort at supplying names and executive actions for his administration.
Via Huffpost:
Vought said his right-wing think tank, the Center for Renewing America, has been drafting hundreds of executive orders that could be used to enact mass firings and deportation of immigrants living in the country illegally. He said he would have no problem funneling the material to Trump.
I should note here that the recruitment effort for staffing up a Trump administration goes beyond Project 2025; the San Francisco Chronicle reported that software company Oracle is reportedly helping a conservative think tank assemble a database of conservative operatives to help implement Project 2025.
The Heritage Foundation and other right wing think tanks are not the sole boosters for an authoritarian USA, this document and its details are simply a manifestation of a larger desire for less democracy on the part of the uber-wealthy.
Project 2025 Department of the Treasury. Authored by William L. Walton, Stephen Moore, David R. Burton*
The Department of Treasury is much more than simply the home of the Internal Revenue Service; it’s the money manager for the federal government and supervisor of entities that store, loan, and dispense currency.
Given the tenet of right wing thought that holding currency in all its forms is the key to power, there are many items on the Project 2025 wish list. The authors seek to instill financial fear by making claims using outdated or manipulated data suggesting the collapse of the dollar is imminent unless actions are taken.
As is true with P2025’s scheme for every federal agency, two priorities are “Reversal of the racist ‘equity’ agenda of the Biden Administration” and “Reversal of the economically destructive and ineffective climate-related financial-risk agenda of the Biden Administration.”
In a sop to the “illegals” lining the right’s pockets, “reform of the anti-money laundering and beneficial ownership reporting systems” is a top priority. Also included in this chapter are ideas for weaponizing the Treasury Department against China and other opponents.
To make all this happen, political employees would replace civil servants through management at the agency as quickly as possible.
Project authors realize that “reforming tax policy” may take several steps, so they start out proposing the two-step variation (15% & 30%) of the flat tax regimen dear to bar stool economists everywhere.
From the Patriotic Millionaires website:
According to estimates from Brendan Duke, the Senior Director for Economic Policy at the Center for American Progress, under this policy, a family of four with $100,000 in annual income would pay $2,600 in additional income tax, while a family of the same size making $5 million a year would receive a $325,000 tax cut.
Also:
The corporate income tax rate should be reduced to 18 percent.
Capital gains and qualified dividends should be taxed at 15 percent.
The system should allow immediate expensing for capital expenditures and index capital gains taxes for inflation.
Repeal all tax increases that were passed as part of the Inflation Reduction Act,19 including the book minimum tax, the stock buyback excise tax, the coal excise tax, the reinstated Superfund tax, and excise taxes on drug manufacturers to compel them to comply with Medicare price controls. (Note: adios to the $35 insulin deal)
Push for legislation to fully repeal recently passed subsidies in the tax code, including the dozens of credits and tax breaks for green energy companies in Subtitle D of the Inflation Reduction Act.
Taxing employers for employee benefits outside of wages totalling more than $12,000 and deductions for benefits of family members over 22 years old would be eliminated. (So much for coverage up to age 26)
From Julia Conley at Common Dreams:
The proposal calls to tax employers on workplace benefits that exceed $12,000 per worker annually—which would undoubtedly "lead to employers cutting back on these benefits," wrote Josh Bivens, chief economist for EPI Action.
Based on health insurance benefits that are provided to more than 150 million Americans through their employers, Bivens found, more than 15 million workers would see their benefits taxed under the Project 2025 plan.
Those workers would collectively pay over $12 billion more in taxes if their employers shifted away from providing benefits as a cost-cutting measure.
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Ultimately, the Project 2025 brain trust would like to tie the country’s taxation to a consumption tax of some sort. This concept is at the heart of the proposed Fair Tax Act of 2023 that Congressional freedom caucus members are using as a bludgeon to get their way with House leadership.
Anytime legislators who depend on campaign contributions from the wealthy say they have an idea for a “Fair” tax plan, you should run like hell away. Don’t buy into all the promised modifiers toward equity for the not-rich.
Here’s the bottom line:
The Fair Tax Act would cut taxes for the wealthy while increasing taxes paid by low- and middle-income retirees who live off of Social Security and savings, as well as families who would be forced to pay more taxes on everyday goods and services. Meanwhile, high-income families who spend less of their income on consumption and who have sufficient earnings to save a substantial fraction of their income would pay a smaller share of their income in tax.
Economic studies of previous consumption tax plans have shown that a tax rate of 50-60% on expenditures would be needed to maintain government funding. Of course, if your aim is to dismantle the government without having to ask people what services they’re willing to give up, this looks like a winner.
They’d also like to build on the success of California’s Prop 13 as an impediment to federal cash flow by urging congress to require a supermajority for any tax increase legislation. Just imagine how deep federally unfunded potholes will be.
They’d like to ignore the success of the Internal Revenue Service's enhanced enforcement of tax returns (and avoidance) by the wealthy.
As part of continuing compliance efforts under the Inflation Reduction Act, the Internal Revenue Service today announced the agency has surpassed the $1 billion mark in collections from high-wealth taxpayers with past-due taxes.
As part of larger efforts taking place, the IRS has stepped up activity specifically on 1,600 individuals whose incomes were more than $1 million per year and who each owed the IRS more than $250,000 in recognized tax debt. Since last fall, this IRS compliance effort has generated more than $1 billion in collections from this group, with work continuing in this area.
The Big Purge: Although there are many more items on the P2025 Treasury wish list, like withdrawing from the World Bank and IMF (which would require more words than I’m willing to type at the moment), I want to call out the barely-disguised Big Purge of Treasury employees.
To hear these bozos tell it, the Biden administration’s efforts toward diversity and inclusion are so egregious that extreme actions are justified, including a mass inquisition seeking out those participating in initiatives, publicly publishing all their documents relating to the matter, and making “participation in any critical race theory or DEI initiative, without objecting on constitutional or moral grounds, as per se grounds for termination of employment.”
There certainly must be a lot of white dudes whose feelings have been hurt by attempting to level the playing field in America’s financial bureaucracy.
PS– Down Ballot voters take note: Next year, half our tax code expires and this election is basically about turning a dial that has "less child poverty" on one side and "more money for billionaires" on the other side. Choose wisely!
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(*) William L. Walton is Chairman of the Resolute Protector Foundation, host of Bill Walton Show, and former Agency Action Leader for all federal economic agencies for 2016, 2017 president-elect Trump transition team; also former CEO, Allied Capital Corporation; board member of The Heritage Foundation.
Stephen Moore is a conservative columnist and Fox News analyst; senior economist, FreedomWorks; Distinguished Fellow, The Heritage Foundation.
David R. Burton is Senior Fellow in Economic Policy at Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation, former General Counsel at the National Small Business Association and at the New England Machinery; former manager US Chamber of Commerce.
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Monday: Show Us the Money; Project 2025 Takes on Finance
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Previously:
(Intro) Digging Deep into Project 2025 - (a multi-part Series)
Going Deep into Project 2025 - Partisan Priorities for Civil Servants
Project 2025: Christian Soldiers Marching Off to Land Wars
Homeland Security’s Authoritarian Role in Project 2025
What Can You Do For Trump Today? Project 2025’s Diplomats, Spies and Spokespersons
No Soup For You: Project 2025’s Foreign Aid Program
Project 2025’s National Nightmare for “The General Welfare”
Project 2025: Junk Food and Parents Rights
Make America Dirty Again: Project 2025 on Energy and the Environment
Project 2025: Some (Christian) People Are More Equal Than Others
Public Land for Sale, Cheap: Project 2025
Revenge Drives Project 2025 Justice Department
Don’t Let Trump Fool Ya: Project 2025 Lives
Department of Labor Gets Religion with Project 2025
Going Nowhere Faster - Project 2025’s Department of Transportation
Project 2025’s Assembly Line Veteran Care
Weather by [color descriptor redacted] Marker Pen: Project 2025's Department of Commerce
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Friday Finds in the News World
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It’s the Land, Stupid: How the Homebuilder Cartel Drives High Housing Prices via Matt Stoller at BIG
Regardless, the net effect of consolidation of homebuilders is significant, estimated at keeping 150,000 new homes from being built every year, which is roughly $100 billion of construction. So what’s the solution?
Well, in this case, the answer is likely a combination of policy interventions. The most important is to equalize credit access for smaller and local developers. We should foster the creation of more local banks, or offer local subsidies or preferential treatment of local developers in buying public land. Another big part of this dynamic is a lack of knowledge. Policymakers and smaller developers need more information about who holds local land lots and who are the big builders, especially at a municipal or regional level.
There aren’t great sources of data for who holds undeveloped parcels off the market. Another is to impose land limitations to prevent land hoarding, or tax the land of lot developers so they don’t hold land off the market. Finally, the Federal Trade Commission and Antitrust Division have a loophole in their merger disclosure form, which is called the Hart Scott Rodino form, which allows big firms to avoid telling the Federal government when they make acquisitions of real estate. That’s a problem, considering the likelihood of consolidation.
Regardless, it’s important to move the discussion about housing away from the focus on local regulations, as this dynamic is clearly a national problem involving a market structure where price signals are not bringing in more supply, but are bringing higher margins to a small group of players….
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What if Trump Tries to Steal the Election Again? Via Civil Discourse with Joyce Vance (h/t Hilda Joy)
Will we face challenges this election cycle? Yes, of course we will. But it’s critical to know this new threat to elections that is surfacing, the idea that pro-Trump officials can just refuse to certify them, is clearly illegitimate. There is no hint of lawfulness here. Trump will try to muddy the waters and people who are loyal to him, not the Constitution, may try to claim election results aren’t clear. In some places, lawyers may have to go to court to force them to certify elections. They will win.
Knowing this is likely coming underscores how important turnout is in this election. Trump needs to be defeated by such overwhelming numbers of votes that it’s virtually impossible to claim fraud. We need to make sure it’s not close; that there is no vestige of legitimacy to his efforts to interfere with the election. As Americans, we are entitled to vote and to pick our own leaders. Increasingly, even those who have previously supported Trump are turning away. Like these folks in Vestavia, Alabama, part of the metro Birmingham, and a solidly Republican area.
The point is this: this talk of failure to certify elections is frightening. We saw what Trump tried to do in 2020. We know he will try to do it again. But don’t let the fear take hold. Legally, he doesn’t have a legitimate move to make. What he’s trying to do is similar to the kind of voter suppression where voters are told their votes won’t matter so they shouldn’t bother to make the effort. He’s trying to win a narrative war. Here, Trump wants to make his successful cheating seem so inevitable that people will accept it as a fait accompli. He’s gotten away with that type of strategy so often in the past. But he’s not going to here. We are not going to let him do that when democracy is at stake.
