Republicans Loved Project 2025 Until It Threatened Big Ag Handouts - R Street Institute
Skip to content
R Street Institute
Research
All Research
Our Policy Areas
Policy Studies
Explainers
R Sheets
External Policy Studies
Commentary
All Commentary
Real Solutions Blog
Op-Eds
Newsletters
Podcasts
Outreach
All Outreach
Letters
Testimony
Regulatory Comments
Events
Connect with R Street
Op-Eds
Republicans Loved Project 2025 Until It Threatened Big Ag Handouts
by
Nan Swift
October 23, 2026
Originally published in Washington Examiner
From Day 1, the Trump administration has swiftly implemented many of Project 2025’s policy recommendations and placed its architects in powerful positions, yet agriculture reform remains conspicuously absent. The Republican-backed Senate farm bill is the latest example of this departure from the manifesto’s core values.
Project 2025’s Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise laid out a governing vision for a Republican administration and the 119th Congress. While many of its recommendations were controversial, its agriculture proposals are hardly radical. They follow the same conservative principles advocates have been pushing for years:
- Reducing reliance on government handouts.
- Restraining government power and overreach.
Chapter 10: Agriculture highlights several issues, including:
-
Abuse of the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC)’s Section 5 Charter Act authority: This allows the Secretary of Agriculture to dispense funds without congressional oversight, as seen in previous administrations.
-
Proposed legislative fixes to prevent such power grabs.
-
Reforms to costly commodity programs, preventing double-dipping, reducing premium support for crop insurance, and eliminating marketing order and checkoff programs.
These changes target programs that primarily benefit large agribusinesses and corporations.
The Heritage Foundation’s Budget Blueprint and similar proposals from the House Republican Study Committee have long suggested these reforms. Even the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and Green Scissors, a joint project between taxpayer and environmental groups, endorse these cuts.
Despite the goals of Project 2025, guiding a Republican-majority government, agriculture reforms have historically enjoyed bipartisan support.