The U.S. Department of Education, easily one of the most long-standing government targets for extinction by conservatives, will face significant spending cuts in the Trump budget scheduled for unveiling on Monday.
According to a high administration official who spoke to Newsmax on background, at least thirty programs in the Department of Education will either be scrapped or be turned over in the former of bloc grants to the states.
“You can assume elimination for quite a few programs that clearly aren’t doing anything for children,” the official told us, “A good example is the Twenty-First Learning Centers [which ostensibly provides “creation of community learning centers that provide academic enrichment opportunities during non-school hours for children, particularly students who attend high-poverty and low-performing schools,” according to the Department of Education’s website].
The same source told us that the Learning Centers program “accomplishes nothing. So assume it’s going, then let the money flow to the states.”
The proposed budget of the Department of Education for FY 2020 is expected to be considerably less than the $68 billion under which it operated in FY 2019.
Created largely as a favor to the National Education Association (NEA) in 1979, the Department of Education’s enabling legislation was passed in the House by a slim vote of 215 to 201. President Jimmy Carter signed it into law on October 17, 1979.
From 1980 to 1996, the Republican Party’s national platform included a plank calling for the abolition of the Department of Education. President Reagan repeatedly called for scrapping but was never able to do so because of the Democratic-controlled House.
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
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