MI voter backs Trump for 'no overtime tax' plan — as Project 2025 vows to kill overtime

05 November 2024

If former President Donald Trump wins the 2024 election, some of his voters may be surprised that the economic plans he championed will be undermined if Trump implements Project 2025's policy recommendations.

This was illustrated in a recent interview that CNN reporter Kylie Atwood conducted with a voter named "Josh" in Grand Rapids, Michigan on Tuesday evening. When asking Josh — a white man who appeared to be between 35 and 50 — who he was supporting, he said he cast his ballot for Trump, primarily for economic reasons.

"[I'm] a blue collar worker and I know one of the things he said he was going to do was cut taxes for overtime, and so that's how I make a lot of my money," he said. "So that was probably the main driving force."

"So for you, it's really a financial decision, more than anything else?" Atwood asked.

"Right, yeah, I would probably say that," Josh replied. "Especially with the way the economy has been."

While Trump has made a promise to cut taxes on overtime work a key plank of his economic agenda, voters like Josh may be surprised to learn that their overtime pay — which federal law mandates be paid at a rate of at least time-and-a-half for every hour of 40 hours in a work week — could be scrapped altogether if Project 2025 comes to fruition. Nonprofit news outlet Capital & Main reported that the document drafted by the far-right Heritage Foundation "outlines plans for a sweeping overhaul of overtime protections that would give employers ways to avoid paying overtime to workers who have long qualified for time-and-a-half pay after 40 hours."

"Workers do not get any additional benefits. It is only employers who get additional benefits," economist Heidi Shierholz told Capital & Main in October. "It is an extremely anti-overtime agenda."

While Trump has made efforts to distance himself from Project 2025 — especially given its overwhelming unpopularity in polls — he praised Heritage in 2022, saying it was "going to lay the groundwork and detail plans for exactly what our movement will do." Additionally, a CNN review found that there were more than 140 former Trump advisors and staffers who worked on the sweeping policy blueprint.

Heritage has also boasted of its close ties to the ex-president on its website and in its fundraising materials. The organization noted that in Trump's first year in the White House, he implemented roughly two-thirds of their policy recommendations, and hired Heritage alumni to key positions throughout his administration.

Watch CNN's interview below, or by clicking this link.

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