Sounding Alarm on Project 2025

Floor Speech

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Mrs. TRAHAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to sound the alarm about the dangerous and extreme policies put forward in Project 2025, the self- described blueprint for the Republican President to take over total control of the Federal Government and our lives.

Spanning more than 900 pages, Project 2025 lays out not a concept of a plan but a plan for Donald Trump or another GOP President to ignore the Constitution and unilaterally turn back the clock on working families, women, and our children.

For families, Project 2025 calls to eliminate overtime pay and kick people with preexisting conditions off of their healthcare insurance.

For women and girls, Project 2025 calls for taking the Republican abortion bans that are devastating women in Georgia and Texas and jeopardizing IVF in Alabama and doing the same nationally.

For our children, Project 2025 calls for eliminating the Department of Education and defunding our public schools.

Each and every one of these proposals would have been devastating for millions of Americans. I know that, Mr. Speaker, because every one of them would have ruined my life.

My dad was a union ironworker. He picked up overtime whenever possible so that he could keep a roof over our heads and put food on the table. Like so many families, Project 2025 taking away the chance to work overtime could have meant us losing our home or going to bed hungry.

When my dad was diagnosed with MS at just 48 years old, he needed his health insurance to visit the doctor and afford his medications. Project 2025 allowing an insurance corporation to kick him off his healthcare coverage just because he was sick would have been a death sentence, just as it could be for millions of Americans with preexisting conditions.

When my husband and I decided to start our family but struggled to get pregnant, we were forced to turn to IVF, and we are so fortunate to have our two beautiful daughters, but as we saw in Alabama, Project 2025's proposals that endanger IVF fertility treatments can be physically and mentally debilitating for couples turning to fertility treatments as their last hope.

Finally, I am the proud product of Lowell Public Schools, from elementary to high school. Like any public school student, I can tell you so many stories of teachers who made the most of the little resources they had to give us every opportunity to succeed.

Ripping that lifeline away from working families, as Project 2025 proposes, is a horrible idea, plain and simple.

Project 2025 will take us backward to a time when life was great if you were wealthy or well connected, but that same time was hard. It was hard for workers and parents like mine who wanted nothing more than to give their kids a better life than they had. That is why I am here to say that we can't and we won't go back.

House Democrats will move our country forward with a vision where people are proud to be an American again.

They are proud because working families aren't just getting by and making ends meet, but they are getting ahead.

They are proud because women have the freedom to make their own healthcare decisions without the fear of politicians getting in the way.

Lastly, they are proud because our children can go to class and thrive while us moms and dads don't have to worry about their school being defunded or, worse, the next target of a deranged mass shooter.

Mr. Speaker, that should be something all of us can get behind, and it is why I will urge my Republican colleagues to reject Project 2025 and work with us to build a future where people have every chance to get ahead.

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