WASHINGTON District of Columbia — Betsy DeVos, former Education Secretary, reiterated her call for the elimination of the Department of Education and called out the federal bureaucrats who, according to DeVos, “actually work against you .”
” “I believe anyone who cares about the size and scope of the federal government needs to make it a top-tier issue going into next cycle,” she stated of conservative plans to fire potentially thousands federal workers in the new Republican administration.
” I think about my experience at the Department of Education, and the formidable bureaucracy and the difficulty it has to implement policy in an environment that is dominated by people who are against you,” DeVos said. That is the core of the criticism against the Department of Education. I believe the department was established on the basis of political gain and have seen its consequences over the years .”
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The “political payoff” to which she referred was a deal made during the 1976 presidential election between then-candidate Jimmy Carter and the teachers’ unions. Carter agreed to create the Department in return for an endorsement, the first time that teachers unions had ever endorsed a presidential candidate.
Democratic presidential hopeful Jimmy Carter shakes hands with Thomas Gleason, left, president of the International Longshoreman’s Union, during a meeting with labor leaders at a New York hotel, July 1976. (AP Photo)
This was the way the unions were able to consolidate power, DeVos told the roundtable of reporters at the Young America’s Foundation’s 44th annual National Conservative Student Conference.
” “It’s an alphabet soup of groups and that are all systemically geared towards protecting and growing our interests,” she stated. “The fact that they give 99.7% of their political — their reported political contributions — to Democrat officeholders or candidates, to those who promised to do their bidding when they get into office.”
The Trump-appointed ex-secretary maintains that there is a practical way to scale back and eventually eliminate that department. He started with the block-granting of all the budget for that department back to the States .”
She stated that the Republican Party should eliminate the Department of Education.
” I think it’s possible to argue that we should stop doing the same thing and start doing something entirely different,” she stated. She said, “And that would be a return to the states setting and supporting policies and, most importantly, to helping parents make decisions about their child’s education .
Breccan F. Thies is a reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow him on Twitter @BreccanFThies.
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