Trump’s idea to shut down Department of Education gets high five from influential conservative

A priority for the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump is to tackle the Deep State, the bureaucracy in Washington that is a self-perpetuating industry, to find what American taxpayers don’t need or want.

And get rid of it.

One of the targets he’s already identified is the Department of Education, which for the last 50 years or so has been expanding until it’s now spending some $240 billion a year of taxpayer money.

And Trump’s plan is getting a thumbs-up from an influential conservative leader, Franklin Graham of Samaritan’s Purse.

“President-elect Donald J. Trump has said the Department of Education should be shut down – and I agree,” Graham posted on social media. “Even President Ronald Reagan championed abolishing it and leaving decisions at the state and local level.

“The Department of Education has only existed since 1979, and we were better off without it. We have been spending billions of dollars for what? To dumb our children down? To teach them to disrespect the flag and our nation? To introduce them to sexual content at earlier ages including gay and transgender agendas? For them to be taught the lies of Critical Race Theory and DEI? To accomplish the woke agendas of teachers’ unions? To have reading scores at near historic lows? To have students score lower in math than they did 20 years ago? To have 1/3 of U.S. school children score below their actual grade level? For the U.S. to rank a low 28th out of 37 countries of the world in math?

“I think we can do better. Put the parents back in the driver’s seat and let schools come under state and local leadership,” he explained.

The BBC noted that ridding the nation of the agency is one of the promises Trump has made.

The federal bureaucrats run student loan programs and those to help low-income students. They run the Pell grant program, support students with disabilities and enforce civil rights law.

But Republicans, for decades already, at least as far back as Ronald Reagan’s campaign, have suggested getting rid of it, ending its campaign to impose “woke” politics on children such as gender ideology and Critical Race Theory.

They suggest the authority be returned to states, which run schools and other education industry components.

The report said, “Conservatives also argue that other education department functions, such as administering loans, should be handled instead by the U.S. Department of Treasury, and that civil rights infractions are the Department of Justice’s domain.”

The report noted Trump cannot shut down the agency by himself, and he would need congressional help.

“While Republicans have a majority in the Senate, they do not have 60 members in the upper chamber, so they would need to convince a few Democrats to vote to abolish the agency. There’s zero chance of that,” the report speculated.