Help me out. The POTUS runs the agencies. He can fire a certain employees. Congress only funds the agencies. Am I right?
I believe you are possibly correct about the President being able to replace certain political appointees at the head of some of the departments and agencies. I believe the agencies are part of the Executive Branch, but Congress legislates them into existence and then legislates their funding. So Congress would have to abolish the Department. I searched Department of Education and found this:
“Ribicoff was quick to support the President’s decision, and in March he and Senators Magnuson, Humphrey, Pell, and Nunn introduced yet another Department of Education Organization Act. The bill did not come up
for a vote in the House during the same session, and the entire proceedings began all over again the following year. This time the bill did reach the House, where it passed in a close vote. President Carter signed the bill into law on October 17th, 1979, finally ending a struggle of almost 150 years to establish a Cabinet-level Department of Education.”