The relatively low-budget feel of the database and the training academy has prompted some of the project’s partners to wonder what, exactly, Dans and his team have done with the $22 million that the Heritage Foundation initially pledged toward Project 2025. When I asked Dans how the budget had been used, he reached for one of his folksy aphorisms.
“I remember this Old Milwaukee [beer] ad from the ’80s … and there was the one guy who was in charge of the beer fund, and [he and his friends] were all happy and they’re drinking ‘Old Mill,’ and [one of them] said, ‘Well, what did you do with all the monies that you were putting into the beer fund?’ And then you see the guy behind them with a big yacht.”
“We’re drinking ‘Old Mill’ here,” he added.
So not all of the $22 million that had been earmarked for the project had actually been allocated to it? I asked.
Dans nodded. “We’re much more [low] budget over here than what people [operating] in the caverns of the liberal mind would like to believe.”