Posted on 10/26/2010 8:16:56 AM PDT by IbJensen
Conservatives have talked wistfully for years about eliminating the Education Department, but a host of Republican "tea party" candidates this election year are saying it's time to move beyond talk and force Congress to vote.
From West Virginia to Kentucky to Nevada, GOP Senate candidates have said they favor elimination of the Cabinet office, created as a separate department by President Carter in 1979 to elevate the federal government's profile on what had been considered a primarily local concern.
Senate candidate Rand Paul, in his Republican primary campaign in Kentucky, was among the first tea-party-backed candidates to revive the idea that the 30-year-old agency had failed students and that the states could do a better job.
"I think I would rather have local school boards, teachers, parents, people ... deciding about your schools and not have it in Washington," he said in a recent debate with the Democratic candidate, state Attorney General Jack Conway.
He has been joined by GOP Senate nominees Sharron Angle in Nevada, John Raese in West Virginia and Mike Lee in Utah, all of whom say they want to see the federal agency abolished. At least 10 Republican tea party candidates have either considered or called for an end to the agency, which for fiscal 2010 had a discretionary budget of $46.8 billion.
Past attempts to shutter the Cabinet department have fallen short, and the GOP effort largely lapsed under President George W. Bush. President Reagan promised to defund the department - formerly part of the Health, Education and Welfare Department - in his 1982 State of the Union address, and the GOP platform in 1996 backed elimination, but the department has survived.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
All those benefits DOE supposedly provides have to come from somewhere. After all, there is no such thing as a free lunch. Why should some poor schmuck working on an assembly line be forced to pay for some middle class kid to go to college?
The main reason the price of college has gone sky high is government money. If you don't understand why this is you should probably bother to learn Econ 101. And of course, not only has the federal government education more expensive (K thru Grad School), it has also done much to destroy the quality of that education. A college diploma used to mean something. Now it's just a expensive counterfeit certificate.
I regard the Department of Education with much disdain. And for me, it’s personal: my sweetie of five years confessed to me in our very first phone call that it was his DREAM to work for the Department of Education. Don’t worry, I straightened him out. lol
I think we need a federal Department of Education for the same reason we need a The Navy of Las Vegas. These two things make as much sense.
The Department of Education is not a district. It employs no teachers and has no students. Not one student owes its launch into the future to the Department of Education. The Navy of Las Vegas has no water or coast, and no ships. And there is no ship that owes it birth to the Navy of Las Vegas.
Government largesse runs from top to bottom. No one wants to live within their means, because it's been so long since anyone tried it, it's shocking to find out what they can actually afford, once the gravy train leaves the station.
These ideas sound great in theory, but when people find out if means no more something-for-nothing, listen to them squeal.
If one does a Cost Benefits Analysis on the Dept of Education and Energy one would abolish both as terrible investments. I think this can be sold to the American people in the near future. Our kids are dumber than a box of rocks and we are not energy independent and nowhere interested in being so.
They don’t have to worry about aid.
The Department of Ed (provided it survives) should employ about 8 people. That would be the number of warm bodies to block grant the money back to the states it was confiscated from.
The only purpose the Dept. of Ed does now, is employ overpaid so-called educators (most have been in the classroom 2 years or less) who write regulations for local districts to comply with.
Quickie....
My former MIL was a school secretary, armed with a typewriter and speedy fingers and little else. She wasn’t particularly brilliant but a good worker. When she finally retired, about 1993 or so, we returned to the school for a visit. There were FIVE secretaries there, all with computers. Not typewriters. Combined, they did the job that she had done alone for years.
The neverending regulations from DC required the additional help.
If you’re wondering what your local district is pissing away money on, there it is.
We’ve got the same situation in my town. We’ve been voting NO constantly on school budgets. They have many secretaries, administrators, etc. It’s all bloated. Here in NJ, with the help of our governor, people are waking up to it a bit.
Why stop with the Education Dept.? The Energy Dept. is even worse. It costs each tax paying family $500 annually ($28 billion annual budget with 16,000 employees). It provides zero benefit.
Milton Friedman, on Reagan's advisory panel, argued persuasively for these things, howbeit, not persuasively enough since these hideous departments and agencies are still with us.
The rule is, it’s easy to create a governmental department or agency but next to impossible to terminate it. Governmental hypocrisy, lying, self interest, money, and power is at the heart of its self-perpetuation. You have to blast out these departments and agencies with the equivalency of tons of TNT.
Too many wonderful conservative ideas get left on the cutting room floor because we assume the failings of our fellow citizens will keep them from seeing our policy brilliance.
At this point, what do we have to lose by going full bore for what is right and having a little faith in our fellow man to follow suit?
Yer right. Might as well try.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.