We’ve all heard the claims about President-elect Trump’s Project 2025, and supposed radical agendas, but with the conclusion of this election, many students are still left wondering: What is the President-elect‘s plan for American citizens? Most legacy media outlets profit tremendously from fear-mongering, and don’t paint a full picture. In the midst of all the uncertainty, it is necessary to develop an understanding of Project 2025, what it is, and how it compares to Trump’s real plan.
Project 2025 is an initiative created by the Heritage Foundation in mid 2022 to lay the groundwork for the next conservative administration (presumably President Trump’s). For almost every election since Reagan, the Heritage Foundation has gathered like minded conservatives to write a manifesto called the Mandate for Leadership, a collection of pre-written policies that, should the GOP candidate win, could be easily implemented on day one. These policies include plans to secure the border, “Finish building the wall, and deport illegal aliens, de-weaponize the Federal Government by increasing accountability and oversight of the FBI and DOJ, Unleash American energy production to reduce energy prices, cut the growth of government spending to reduce inflation, make federal bureaucrats more accountable to the democratically elected President and Congress, improve education by moving control and funding of education from DC bureaucrats directly to parents and state and local governments, and ban biological males from competing in women’s sports.” While most of these concepts are fairly popular among conservatives, it is important to note that neither Trump nor JD Vance have claimed to have read it, let alone endorsed it.
Although there is plenty to discuss in regards to Project 2025, the complete document is over 900 pages, and has little to no weight, given the president-elect’s stated indifference. Agenda 47 on the other hand, is the name for the president-elect’s official agenda, and as the naming scheme would imply, it is fairly similar to Project 2025 in the sense that it is a comprehensive list of Trump’s plans as soon as he steps into the oval office. Agenda 47 takes the form of a series of roughly three minute speeches on various issues. Although the policies in it vary from a semiquincentennial (250th anniversary) celebration in Iowa to ending homelessness among veterans, there are a few that would affect American students considerably. I would highly encourage all students to take a few minutes of their time to listen to the president-elect speak on these issues, along with every other issue in his agenda.
Over the years, Trump has been consistently in favor of US oil production. Some folks might know this movement under the phrase “Drill, baby, drill.” As we all know, gas prices have gone up drastically over the last four years, which Trump argues is a result of Biden’s poor management of our oil industry. In this short speech, Trump promises to rapidly restart oil production and lower energy costs all across America, creating more jobs for young Americans in these fields, and hopefully making American industry more independent. “Nobody has more liquid gold under their feet than the United States of America. And we will use it and profit by it and live with it. And we will be rich again and we will be happy again. And we will be proud again. Thank you very much.”
Energy is 6.7 percent of our GDP, and it seeps into every other industry on earth. If fuel becomes cheaper, trucking will become cheaper, and flights will be cheaper, and heating will be cheaper, and cooling will be cheaper. Environmentalists claim giving up oil will somehow save us from the sun monster. In reality, by surrendering our ability to power our country quickly and affordably, we allow China and Russia to develop at a much faster rate than us, and for much less resources. Al Gore said we would be underwater eleven years ago, and while it is proven that human activity does contribute to climate change, it is still heavily debated what the margins are. By lowering the cost of goods and services for everyone in the country, we will create new jobs, and boost our economy tremendously, and when some socialist governor in 2050 wants to build solar panels, we’ll be more than wealthy enough to accommodate.
Over the last four years, home prices have increased drastically, and we’re at a point where home ownership is almost out of the question for most young Americans. The president-elect blames this on Biden’s infrastructure plans that “Will use the power of the federal government to abolish zoning for single-family homes and destroy property values by building giant multi-family apartment complexes in the suburbs,” as well as Biden’s heavy regulations on vehicle emissions, which he claims unnecessarily drives up the price of goods for consumers. He plans to cut these regulations, hopefully “saving the average American household an extra $3,100 each year, and especially helping low income Americans increase their purchasing power by up to 15%.”
In addition to re-writing infrastructure laws, Trump plans to build more cities across the nation that will increase the amount of available suburbs accessible to new American families, as well as creating new trade agreements that will prioritize American workers and corporations in markets that rely primarily on American consumers. The federal government owns nearly one third of the US landmass, most of which is mostly empty. Trump is proposing to charter “Freedom Cities” in this empty space, “Freedom Cities will be built on federal land that is undeveloped and not part of any of our country’s magnificent national parks or other natural treasures. These cities will give hundreds of thousands of hardworking American families a new opportunity for home ownership and the American Dream.” In addition to the new cities, the President-elect plans to give “baby bonuses,” presumably in the form of tax credits, to parents of infants, to encourage the birth of the next generation. Other plans under this initiative include beautifying public spaces, and the implementation of the America First Trade Policy, which will strategically implement tariffs (a tariff is essentially a tax on imported goods, depending on the country of origin and the product in question) to encourage American manufacturing. Trump hopes that by artificially making manufacturing more expensive in China, companies will choose to manufacture in the US, which creates more jobs for American workers. “Higher tariffs will create millions of new jobs, increase real household income, boost GDP, increase domestic manufacturing output, and generate trillions of dollars of new wealth to strengthen American society.” In Trump’s last term, he implemented similar tariffs, and we saw great economic growth, but as these plans still are in the works, it is hard to make a reasonable guess as to their potential impact.
I hate war, and I am sure many if not all students at Lower Merion do as well. Trump, along with many, have criticized Biden’s war in the Ukraine, claiming it is a waste of the United States’s budget, as well as criticizing the unnecessary escalation with Russia. “If I were president, the Russia-Ukraine War would never have happened,” President Trump said. “Never in a million years. But even now, if I were president, I’d be able to negotiate an end to this horrible and rapidly escalating war in twenty-four hours.” Trump has also aired similar plans for the Israel-Palestine war, though it is not present in this collection. If he is successful in these efforts, the US will have hundreds of billions more to spend on other initiatives that would help the average citizen, and students thinking of joining the armed forces can rest easier knowing there is a much lower chance they might be involved in a major conflict in the next 4 years.
To answer the burning question, in a Trump presidency you can expect cheap gas and cheap homes. You can expect a hike in American jobs, and with it higher wages, and you can expect peace in Europe, and most likely, the rest of the world.
