Chippewa Valley Officials Share Project 2025 Warning

Chippewa Valley officials gathered at the Democratic Resource Center in Eau Claire on Wednesday to share their warnings on Project 2025.

State Representative Jodi Emerson, Nick Brenner of Roofers and Waterproofers Union Local 96, Chippewa Falls Alderman Heather Martell, and Eau Claire City Council Member Dr. Emily Anderson spoke at the Democratic Resource Center press conference.

Project 2025 is an agenda facilitated by the Heritage Foundation that outlines their policy plans for the next Republican Presidency. The 900 page plan calls for a consolidation of power with the executive branch, seeking to expand presidential power and overhaul the federal workforce. It also calls for controversial proposals to carry out mass deportations of undocumented immigrants and implement a national abortion ban.

“Donald Trump and JD Vance’s extreme Project 2025 agenda would rip away health care access, social security and medicare, and rig the economy for the ultra-wealthy and big corporations at the expense of working families,” said State Representative Emerson. “It is a radical policy agenda by Trump, and his MAGA extremists, loyalists. That hurts the middle class and it raises costs for families while giving out handouts to billionaire donors.”

Former President Donald Trump has attempted to distance himself from the Project 2025 agenda as it becomes widely disseminated. Critics of the proposal say many of his former aides were involved in the creation of the agenda.

The Project 2025 agenda also calls for a scaling back of protections and changes in terminology for diversity efforts, including the LGBTQ+ community.

“Since Eau Claire is a community of diversity, we embrace the LGBTQ+ community,” said Alderman Martell. “We are members of that community, many of us. Their very identities would be at risk. Their access to health care would be at risk. Their lives would be at risk.”

City Council Member Dr. Emily Anderson focused on the effects the implementation of the Project 2025 agenda would have on the senior community in the Chippewa Valley.

“I know that cutting prescription prices for seniors is important,” she said. “It’s a real need for them, and it’s a popular thing to do I think everyone agrees on that and it should be a political slam dunk. But despite these obvious benefits, MAGA Republicans plan to eliminate these drug savings in their Project 2025 plan for America, leading to skyrocketing prescription costs for seniors.”

Speaking on Project 2025’s potential effects on unions, Nick Brenner said “I also know firsthand that Donald Trump’s Project 2025 agenda is anti-worker, and will only hurt working class families across Wisconsin. Last night in Milwaukee, MAGA Republicans doubled down on an economic agenda filled with tax handouts for billionaires on the backs of middle class families. Trump’s Project 2025 plans could raise taxes up to $8,300 a year and skyrocket the prices of household goods for the middle class.”

When asked about what effects the implementation of the Project 2025 agenda would have on the average Chippewa Valley resident, State Representative Emerson said “If you’re of retirement age, there goes your social security. There goes your Medicare. If you know somebody, if you have a parent who is living on social security and medicare, clean out your spare bedroom because they’re going to be moving in if Project 2025 comes to fruition.”

In addition to the press conference at the Democratic Resource Center on Wednesday, candidates for the 3rd Congressional District Democratic Primary also criticized the Project 2025 agenda at Tuesday’s forum in Eau Claire.