With polls showing a tossup presidential race and the possibility of a Republican-majority Senate, federal workers, state leaders, and community members alike worry about what Project 2025 could mean for their neighbors and communities.
The Project 2025 agenda could seriously affect D.C. and surrounding areas, especially Prince George’s County, Maryland, with former President Trump promising to fire “disloyal” federal workers and relocate vital federal agencies from the region if reelected next week.
Both Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D) and Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott (D), who have partnered with the Biden administration to bring homicide rates to historic lows, raised concerns about what another Trump administration could mean.
“This extreme proposal is designed to roll back progress, unravel justice, equality and fairness, and erode the most foundational ideals of our democracy,” said NAACP Legal Defense Fund President Janai Nelson in a statement. “These disturbing and egregious measures include aims to severely diminish Black political power, threaten and subjugate Black communities within the criminal legal system and undermine every person’s right to quality education and reproductive health care.”
In Prince George’s and Charles Counties, numerous Black middle-class families work for the federal government or have family members who do. Further, many relocated to this region with job prospects as the main attraction.
More than 18% of federal employees are Black, according to the Office of Personnel Management. This includes Ashaki Robinson of Bowie, who relocated from Michigan to work for the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
“The migration of employed workers coming from the South to Washington, D.C., or this area here was to get a good government job, just like the migration to Detroit in that area was auto workers,” said American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) National Secretary Eric Bunn.
Eliminating the Department of Education and the Head Start program, raising taxes on middle-class families by an estimated $1,828 annually, and several other core aspects of Project 2025 could have disastrous impacts on the local economy and significantly reduce the operating budgets in D.C, Prince George’s, and Maryland as a whole.
While Trump distanced himself from the plan during the September presidential debate, it was originally written by conservative think tank Heritage Foundation, which heavily staffed and guided the priorities of his presidential administration.
The plan’s other tenets include:
- mass deportation of undocumented immigrants.
- criminalizing access to emergency contraception.
- gutting Social Security and raising the retirement age to 69.
- raising student loan repayment rates.
- raising the cost of prescription drugs.
- implementing lifetime caps on Medicaid benefits.
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