Donald Trump expected to sign executive order to dismantle Education Department | Hacker News Reader

Donald Trump expected to sign executive order to dismantle Education Department

thehill.com

31 pointskennysoona11 comments

While this is deeply concerning, they don’t have the votes.

FTA:

> The draft of the order recognizes that the president does not have the authority to abolish the department and that it would likely take 60 votes in the Senate, where Republicans hold only 53 seats, The Washington Post reported.

> But it directs McMahon to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Education Department” based on “the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law,” according to the Journal.

And yet, damage done. We can assume that for 77 million Americans now, the Department of Education is now seen as a "bad guy".

> While this is deeply concerning, they don’t have the votes.

Does it really matter if its officially shut down or just internally sabotaged to the point of effectively not existing?

see: USAID

The question is: "how much can they do quickly?"

The question is definitely not: "what is the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law?"

If they can fire people and shutter facilities quickly enough, it won't matter much that they get sued for it or what the outcome of the lawsuits is. The department will be gone.

[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43275792

Wow such efficiency.

268 billion per year. I wonder how much of that goes directly to boots on the ground staff vs. bureaucracy.

Neither. Most of it is grants/loans to students or grants to schools (e.g. for special ed programs, facility improvements, and to provide additional money to poor school districts). The majority of the budget goes to Federal Student Aid: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Student_Aid.

And like many of Trump's actions a dismantled DoE is going to disproportionately hurt "red" states:

https://imageio.forbes.com/specials-images/imageserve/67928b...

Good job "owning the libs" MAGA voters.

This isn't quite the "gotcha" that a lot of folks think it is, and I say this as someone polticaly far to the left of the US Democratic Party.

Consider the closing down of public pools when they started desegregating them. It might seem like a loss (and I agree that it is), but if you feel you're insulated from the effects then it's not a problem so much as a bad thing that you're happy is happening to other, undeserving people.

And a lot of folks are either materially in a position where they aren't super impacted by that kind of thing (they can build their own pools) or they are so far into a fantasy about aspiring to be that kind of person that they don't see themselves as impacted.

At the same time, while I total understand the ire at that voting bloc (they are no friends of mine), I do have a lot of poor friends in red states and it's been very hard to muster any enjoyment of watching folks who live under highly authoritarian systems (often gerrymandered to the point of intractability) get some imaginary "comeuppance".

Consider that "if you feel you're insulated from the effects [because you live in a blue state] then it's not a problem so much as a bad thing that you're happy is happening to other, undeserving people."

Did you figure out how to talk to these people?

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