Make Me Smart

Project 2025 and the fate of the federal workforce


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Today we’re talking about Project 2025, the 922-page set of conservative policy proposals written as a blueprint for a second Donald Trump administration by the Heritage Foundation think tank.


E.J. Fagan, political science professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago and author of “The Thinkers: The Rise of Partisan Think Tanks and the Polarization of American Politics,” said Project 2025 is not your run-of-the-mill policy guide like the ones the Heritage Foundation has written for decades.


“When you read this document, Project 2025, it’s a much different document than previous ones. It is not just conservative policy recommendations, but options that conservatives and a new Trump administration could use to bypass American constitutional government,” said Fagan.


On the show today, Fagan explains how the Heritage Foundation became closely allied with former President Trump, how their Schedule F plan could drastically transform the vast federal workforce and what it could mean for the economy.


Then, we’ll get into what the Chase “ATM glitch” fiasco tells us about the state of financial literacy. And, some good news from the Census Bureau about household incomes.


Plus, a call for a revolt against the penny from one listener and a vocab lesson from another.


Here’s everything we talked about today:


  • “Project 2025: The myths and the facts” from Vox
  • “Trump’s second-term agenda takes aim at federal workforce, union leaders warn” from The Washington Post
  • “House Republican Agendas and Project 2025 Would Increase Poverty and Hardship, Drive Up the Uninsured Rate, and Disinvest From People, Communities, and the Economy” from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
  • “What is Project 2025? Wish list for a Trump presidency, explained” from BBC News  
  • “David Sedaris Reads George Saunders” from The New Yorker
  • “JPMorgan Plans to Report Customers Who Exploited TikTok ‘Glitch’ to Authorities” from The Wall Street Journal
  • “The real problem with the Chase ‘ATM glitch'” from Axios 
  • “US Incomes Climbed Last Year, Census Bureau Says” from The Wall Street Journal


We want to hear your answer to the Make Me Smart question. Leave us a voicemail at 508-U-B-SMART or email us at [email protected].

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