Trump is taking steps towards reform at the Department of Education, perhaps with the goal of dissolving it, a thing he talked about on the campaign trail last fall. This is something that conservatives have been talking about since the days of Ronald Reagan.
If Trump were to do this successfully, control over education would be returned to the states.
The Washington Post reports:
Trump preps order to dismantle Education Dept. as DOGE probes dataPresident Donald Trump is preparing an executive order aimed at eventually closing the Education Department and, in the short term, dismantling it from within, according to three people briefed on its contents.The draft order acknowledges that only Congress can shut down the department and instead directs the agency to begin to diminish itself, these people said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about internal issues.That work is underway already. The new administration has been trying to reduce the workforce by putting scores of employees on administrative leave and pressuring staff to voluntarily quit.And roughly 20 people with Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency,” known as DOGE, have begun working inside the Education Department, looking to cut spending and staff, according to three people familiar with the situation and records obtained by The Washington Post…A White House official confirmed the White House is preparing for executive action later this month that will fulfill Trump’s campaign pledge to defund the department.
Peter Doocy of FOX News mentioned this on the air last night.
Politico provides a little more inside baseball on this:
It would direct the department to craft a plan to wind down its functions using its existing administrative authority. But the order was also expected to call for the agency to inventory a complex set of laws needed to delegate the department’s powers to other agencies and then close the department, an acknowledgment that some of conservatives’ biggest desires for change hinge on congressional approval. Such an order would launch a complex initiative. Some conservatives concede they currently lack enough support for legislation to close the department and farm its core functions out to other federal agencies…According to a third person granted anonymity to discuss sensitive information, representatives from the so-called Department of Government Efficiency were working at Education Department headquarters Monday and seeking access to agency records.A representative for DOGE did not respond to a request for comment.
Trump was clear that he intended to do this. I imagine many people on the left didn’t believe him or did not believe he would be able to do it.
If it looks like Trump is going to pull this off, I would expect a Kavanaugh level meltdown from Democrats and the media.
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