Don’t Be Fooled: The U.S. ‘Reconciliation Bill’ Is a Trojan Horse for Project 2025”

 

by Tina Winterlik aka Zipolita

When we talk about reconciliation in Canada, it means something profound: healing, truth, and justice for Indigenous peoples. It’s about acknowledging our colonial history, taking responsibility, and committing to lasting change.

But across the border in the United States, the word “reconciliation” is being used in a very different — and frankly disturbing — way.

A recent U.S. “budget reconciliation bill” has surfaced, and it’s not about truth or healing. It’s a massive, quietly packaged attempt to rewrite the structure of American democracy, following the radical agenda laid out in Project 2025 — a far-right blueprint to transform government into a tool of ideological control.

Here’s what’s really inside this so-called reconciliation bill:

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1. A War on the Poor, Sick, and Immigrants

• Work requirements for food stamps (SNAP)
• Elimination of nutrition education and health programs
• Stripping immigrants of healthcare and food aid
• Slashing Medicaid, imposing work mandates, and limiting coverage windows

Translation: Punish the most vulnerable while preaching “personal responsibility.”

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2. A Culture War in Disguise

• Ban on gender-affirming care for youth
• Cuts to public education and “values-based” redirection
• Creation of “Trump Savings Accounts” aligned with “American values”

Translation: Enshrine far-right social values into law, using moral control as economic policy.

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3. Environmental Destruction Masquerading as Deregulation

• Gutting the EPA’s authority
• Killing clean air protections
• Cancelling national park and conservation funding
• Rescinding ecosystem restoration and historic preservation funds

Translation: Turn public lands over to fossil fuel interests and erase climate policy.

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4. Centralized, Unchecked Executive Power

• Federal agencies cannot issue rules without White House approval
• Agencies like Education barred from proposing regulations
• Courts stripped of power to review federal permits

Translation: All roads lead to the president — dismantling the system of checks and balances.

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5. Purge of Civil Servants and Watchdogs

• “Schedule F” returns, allowing mass firings of federal workers
• Guts independent oversight bodies like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
• Limits state authority on tech, energy, education, and more

Translation: Remove career professionals and replace them with loyalists, silence dissent, and kill accountability.

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6. Fossil Fuel Bailouts and Corporate Protection

• Legal immunity for oil and gas companies
• Creation of a “De-risking Fund” to protect polluters from regulation
• Weakening court oversight of environmental violations

Translation: Prioritize polluters, not people.

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So What’s Really Going On?

This bill is Project 2025 in legislative form — a sweeping plan to:

• Centralize power in the presidency
• Dismantle civil protections and environmental safeguards
• Target LGBTQ+, immigrant, and low-income communities
• Reorient government around extreme right-wing ideology

And they’re doing it under the banner of a budget reconciliation bill, abusing a technical Senate rule meant for fiscal issues — not social engineering, deregulation, or authoritarian restructuring.

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Why Canadians Should Care

Even though this is happening in the U.S., we cannot ignore it. The language of reconciliation is being twisted. The strategies may cross borders. And movements here at home must stay alert to how policies like these might be mirrored or normalized elsewhere.

Reconciliation must mean healing — not harm.

Let’s not allow the hijacking of this powerful word go unchallenged. Read the fine print. Read the bill. And never stop asking who benefits, and who is being silenced.