The Lie that is Project 2025 and Why You Should Worry: Part 1
Because it’s not getting enough attention, I am taking time away from genealogy to offer my opinions about the “2025 Presidential Transition Project” from the Heritage Foundation. While 2025 is in its title, it is not just about a future administration under a convicted felon. The intent of the Heritage Foundation is that this be future of America no matter who is president.
This massive 920-page bible for Republicans styles itself as a “Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise.” It tackles many issues, so I thought I would take on bits and chunks to digest and ponder. Since we are nearing the two-year anniversary of the Dobbs decision and healthcare is so much front of mind, I wanted to start with the Heritage Foundation’s proposed takeover of the Department of Health and Human Services, written by Roger Severino a Harvard-trained lawyer who worked in the convicted felon’s administration from 2017 to 2021.[1] The Human Rights Campaign described Severino as a "radical anti-LGBTQ activist.”[2]
In his introduction to this section, Severino claims that the HHS has “lost its way” and that life expectancy, especially among white people, has continued “to drop precipitously” from to levels not seen in thirty years. As he puts it “Nothing less than America’s long-term survival is at stake.”[3] Hyperbole is strong with this one.
To support his point, Severino cites a 2022 USA Today article by Karen Weintraub: “Americans' life expectancy continues to fall, erasing health gains of the last quarter century.”[4] What Severino conveniently leaves out is the explanation from the interviewee in the article, Dr. Steven Woolf, a professor of family medicine and population health at Virginia Commonwealth University. Woolf said several factors effect life expectancy/death rates, including low COVID-19 vaccination rates. And WHY would there be low COVID-19 vaccination rates, Roger? Would that have something to do with a certain political party or a certain convicted felon?
Severino also ignores the current estimations of life expectancy (the USA Today article cited CDC statistics from 2021). An updated report from the CDC shows life expectancy increasing in 2022 and part of that due to decreased deaths from COVID-19.[5]
Further, Severino conveniently ignores similar recent projections like those from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office which state: “In CBO’s projections, mortality rates decline from 2024 to 2054. As a result, over those years, life expectancy at birth is projected to increase from 78.7 years to 82.2 years, and life expectancy at age 65 is projected to increase from 19.6 years to 21.8 years.”[6] All that will presumably happen without “help” from the Heritage Foundation.
We haven’t even gotten into Severino’s claims of what is so very wrong with the HHS before he whole premise for making fundamental changes crumbles. Not surprised.
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[1] Wikipedia.org, Roger Severino, rev. 12:25, 15 June 2024.
[2] “Trump Appoints Radical Anti-LGBTQ Activist to Lead HHS Civil Rights Office,” Human Rights Campaign (https://www.hrc.org/news/trump-appoints-radical-anti-lgbtq-activist-to-lead-hhs-civil-rights-office).
[3] Roger Severino, “Chapter 14: Department of Health and Human Services,” Mandate for Leadership, The Conservative Promise, The Heritage Foundation (Washington, D.C.: The Heritage Foundation, 2023), 449-502; digital images (https://static.project2025.org/2025_MandateForLeadership_FULL.pdf).
[4] Karen Weintraub, “Americans' life expectancy continues to fall, erasing health gains of the last quarter century,” USA Today (https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2022/12/22/us-life-expectancy-continues-fall-erasing-25-years-health-gains/10937418002/).
[5] Kenneth D. Kochanek, M.A., Sherry L. Murphy, B.S., Jiaquan Xu, M.D., and Elizabeth Arias, Ph.D., “NCHS Data Brief, No. 492, Mortality in the United States, 2022” (March 2024), CDC.gov (https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db492.pdf).
[6] “The Demographic Outlook: 2024 to 2054,” Congressional Budget Office (January 2024), (https://www.cbo.gov/publication/59899#:~:text=CBO's%20and%20SSA's%20projections%20of,and%2083.7%20years%20in%202054).