Project 2029: The Executive Summary

This is the executive summary of the full Project 2029 plan. The appendices explain its financing, implementation, legal background, and history.

The situation

Project 2029 assumes that a president committed to the Mission for America takes office in January 2029 with narrow majorities in both chambers. The Senate keeps the filibuster, and some members of the president's party will not support a Reconstruction Finance Corporation or investment at the scale the Mission proposes. If Congress is willing to authorize the full Mission immediately, this interim plan is unnecessary.

The plan takes that congressional constraint as its starting point and describes what the administration could undertake before seeking a broader legislative program. Chartering the full Reconstruction Finance Corporation would still require Congress. Read the premise.

The strategy

The plan organizes the first two years around projects and services whose progress people could assess before the November 2030 midterms. Its stated political objective is to build support for a Congress willing to pass the full Mission for America in 2031; that is the objective of the proposal, not an election outcome that can be assumed.

It has three parts: national investment, a state pilot, and a legislative program. Staffing and delivery support all three. Read the first-two-years outline.

First, national investment

A team of a few dozen people with operating experience would work from the White House Ballroom as an RFC-in-waiting. It would connect manufacturers, banks, builders, and public owners with the federal programs that can finance their projects. Authorized agency officials would make and administer the commitments.

The industrial examples include batteries, chips, and grid equipment, with the same approach applied across the economy: bring customers and suppliers together, identify missing equipment and production capacity, and arrange eligible financing. The national building program would also give manufacturers visibility into equipment purchases as projects and contracts take shape.

Alongside that is a national building retrofit program. The plan begins with federal properties and energy savings performance contracts, under which a contractor arranges financing and guarantees savings, and the agency repays the work from its energy budget. Those early projects would establish the teams and contracting process for repeated delivery, then help extend the approach to schools, hospitals, housing, and other properties. The targets include assessing every federal building by November 2030 and awarding at least 200 federal performance contracts a year.

This financing depends on congressional action before the 2028 election. The current Congress or the next must extend the expiring authorities the plan needs, meeting earlier deadlines as they arise; some programs also need their funds replenished. The plan expects renewals because established credit programs have bipartisan constituencies, renewal records, and comparatively modest budget costs. Those are its reasons for expecting action, not votes or funds already secured. Each project must still qualify under its program. Historical lending totals are not money waiting to be spent in 2029. Read the national mobilization and financing account.

Second, a state pilot

Every governor would be invited to compete, with terms published on inauguration day. Applications would name actual projects and commitments: unions identifying supervisors, contractors identifying work, banks identifying financing, and the governor committing to changes within the state's authority. Federal teams would visit serious applicants within 60 days and make the award inside 90.

The pilot would seek about $30 million over two years from the Labor Department's national reserve for dislocated workers, combining a demonstration grant of about $8 million with a larger grant under a provision that lets the reserve fund a statewide response to job losses. That money would pay for the start of training and a small number of state administrative posts. An embedded federal team would help assemble projects and financing. Private investment and lending would carry the building work beyond the Labor Department award and beyond government properties. State commitments include eligible SNAP training reimbursements, childcare funding through TANF transfers where the state has room, and higher childcare-provider payments.

The plan calls for paid learning and support from the first week, including health coverage, childcare where needed, mileage, tools, and boots. The Labor Department award supports classroom training; project work pays wages when participants join crews. The state must establish the actual payment and coverage routes before promising a place. Employment on a project does not begin automatically when someone enters a classroom.

The number of workers remains undetermined. It depends on projects, financing, and the experienced people available to supervise. Apprenticeship ratios constrain supervised apprentice places, not every worker in the wider pilot economy. Existing contractors and private financing can support work beyond the training cohort. Read the state pilot.

Third, a legislative program

The legislative program includes restoring Medicaid and Affordable Care Act coverage, food assistance, and other benefits; rebuilding agency capacity; replenishing investment programs; and improving public services. Proposed digital-service projects include return-free tax filing and automatic enrollment in benefits for which people already qualify.

Budget reconciliation would carry provisions that meet its rules. Other changes would require separate legislation and additional votes, while administrative improvements could begin under existing authority.

Its proposed Smart Tariff would be announced during the campaign and legislated for 2031, alongside financing offers for eligible domestic investment. Congress would have to enact it; reconciliation is one possible route for provisions that qualify. Industrial construction and expansion could begin earlier through available programs, and some plants would take longer than 2031 to reach production. Read the legislative program and the Smart Tariff proposal.

Staffing and executive authorities

The staffing plan uses existing hiring and assignment authorities to put a few hundred people in White House roles within weeks and several thousand more in agencies during the first year. It identifies offices to fill early, a priority list for Senate confirmations, and acting appointments subject to succession and time rules.

It also calls for changes to career hiring, employee protections, ethics, and public reporting. Restoring the Department of Education would begin by reversing dismantling directives and reviewing agreements and staffing changes. The department still exists in law; restoring its operations requires people and resources as well as signatures. Existing authority does not remove the need for usable funds or required confirmations. Read staffing and delivery.

What it adds up to

The proposed sequence is to establish projects and delivery teams, expand industrial and building work, operate the pilot, and seek the legislation needed for further investment. The plan calls for public reporting on financing, employment, energy savings, childcare, and other services so readers can assess what has happened.

Its intended result by fall 2030 is building work across the country, industrial projects at different stages of production, and a state demonstrating the combined approach. The timetable distinguishes early projects from investments still under construction, and available funding from projects waiting for legislation. The full Mission would still depend on a subsequent congressional decision. Read the timetable.