Vice President Kamala Harris in recent months has spent considerable time and energy attacking Project 2025, the conservative movement’s plan to curtail the administrative state and put Washington back into the hands of the American people.
When asked about the second assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump in a recent interview, the vice president even responded by describing our work as a threat to the safety of Americans.
This attempt to equate policy ideas to an assassination attempt rather than honestly debate the issues is dishonest and dangerous. So, before the vice president raises the temperature even higher, let me set the record straight.
Project 2025 isn’t centered on Donald Trump
Our policy work isn’t about any single presidential candidate, and it never has been. We started our work in the spring of 2022, before Trump announced he was running for a second term and well before any primary.
Our work also is not unique. Many other think tanks on both sides of the aisle, including the far-left Center for American Progress, do similar work advancing their priorities.
Finally, our work isn’t new. The Heritage Foundation has produced conservative policy playbooks every election cycle since Ronald Reagan’s victories in 1980 and 1984.
Now as then, those policies are focused on empowering American citizens to achieve the American dream, a dream that more and more Americans feel is slipping out of reach.
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That means our policies are focused on protecting the freedom of Americans to work hard in a steady job. The freedom for Americans to put dinner on the table for their family. And the freedom for Americans to live in a house that they own in a neighborhood where they are safe.
Unfortunately, almost every objective measure indicates that it is much more difficult for Americans to do that now than it was when the Biden-Harris administration entered the White House.
Americans struggle to pay the bills
The highest rates of inflation in 40 years mean that the average weekly paycheck is $160 larger than when President Joe Biden and Harris took office, but it buys $35 less.
Last year, a typical American family paid $709 more each month for essentials like food, clothing, housing and transportation than they did only two years earlier.
And the average monthly mortgage payment has nearly doubled in the past four years, which leaves homeownership affordability at a record low, according to some metrics.
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The White House knows these facts and figures, and millions of Americans know the consequences of this administration’s failure. That’s why, outside of Washington, D.C., and the influence of the mainstream news media, many of our policies are popular with the public.
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Most people support sending U.S. troops to the southern border to stop drug cartels. They’re in favor of allowing parents to send children to a school of their choice. And our polling indicates that they agree with us that Congress should have to approve any major regulations before they take effect.
Other policies we promote, such as dismantling the Department of Education and fighting the pornography industry, are less popular, but we believe that they are no less essential to restore the health of our republic.
Popular or not, the fact that a group of conservative organizations are offering conservative policy solutions shouldn’t be a scandal. It certainly shouldn’t make anyone feel unsafe.
What should be a scandal is that after four years of failure and months of attacking us, this White House continues to roll out the same tired ideas that have been detrimental to the American dream.
What should be a scandal is the vice president’s attempt to avoid discussions of substantive policy issues. Americans want and deserve a real debate, not vibes.
Kevin Roberts is president of Heritage Action and The Heritage Foundation.
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Opinion: Harris’ claims about Project 2025 are deceptive – and wrong
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