It seems like spending reductions, smaller government, and eliminating waste are no longer Republican ideals. When Education Secretary Betsy DeVos presented a budget that did just that, Congress turned a deaf ear. What’s more, they made it difficult for her to even make some systemic changes to the Department of Education that (like most departments) desperately needs.
As part of the massive spending bill that was passed last week, Congress “awarded the department a $2.6 billion boost when Mrs. DeVos had requested a $9 billion cut. She had sought to dismantle her agency’s central budget office, a move she said would create a leaner structure, and to cut the number of field offices in the civil-rights division to four from 12. The spending package included specific measures preventing her from doing so.”
Apparently, trying to implement change caused some problems among more seasoned politicians that Congress just put a stop to by hamstringing her efforts at education and fiscal reform: “in the spending package, lawmakers forbade Mrs. DeVos from dismantling the budget office and increased the civil-rights division’s funding by $8.5 million, specifying that the additional money couldn’t be used to reduce staff, such as through buyouts. The civil-rights division is tasked with, among other things, enforcing Title IX.”
It’s a shame that politics over policy has gotten so pervasive even among Republicans. Such ridiculous behavior shows how broken our system has become — which is why it’s getting more and more likely that a huge Democrat sweep will happen at midterms.