Sec. of Ed. Miguel Cardona’s comment sends Reaganites reeling
Aside from the obvious irony of his misquote, even more ridiculous was who he attributed it to.
The most terrifying words in the English language are those that exited the mouth of Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona in Jackson Hole, Wyoming Monday.
With a genteel pounding of his fist, America’s 12th Education Secretary looked into the eyes of the assembled governors and said, “As, uh, I think, President Reagan said, we’re from the government! We’re here to help!”
Cardona, who has served as education overlord since Biden’s installation as president in 2021, was giving a keynote speech at the Western Governors Association’s winter meeting about schools post-lockdown. He expressed dismay that schools managed to return to the old ways of educating instead of, as he put it, “embracing the disruption.”
In other words, many governors let a good crisis go to waste.
Aside from the obvious irony of his misquote, even more ridiculous was who he attributed it to.
President Reagan sought to abolish the Department of Education and hired only education secretaries who would gladly go down with the sinking ship.
The it’s-for-the-children bureaucracy was still in its early years, created by legislation designed during the disastrous War on Poverty. So distaste for a cabinet-level position to oversee what are obviously state responsibilities under the 10th Amendment was not as widespread.
In 1981, Reagan’s first Ed. Sec. Terrel Bell put together a plan to carry out Reagan’s commitment. However, the mission to undo Carter’s folly wasn’t politically viable. When Bell retired in 1984, the best Reagan could do was hire someone determined to prevent more bloat. He went with Bill Bennett, who did the best he could.
They just don’t make education secretaries like Bell and Bennett anymore. Trump-pick Betsey DeVos did concur that the billion-dollar bureaucracy should not exist. She said as much when she appeared in a COVID-era virtual session with Moms for Liberty.
But if a serious attempt to abolish the infant department was politically difficult 40-plus years ago, imagine making such a suggestion about Carter’s fully-grown monster with 4,400 entitled Democrats on payroll.
The Framers never would have dreamt of this, and Reagan is rolling over in his grave. Even during its nascent years, the Department’s annual budget remained in the ballpark of $14 billion.
Now, half a century later, the budget for the Department of Education this fiscal year was $274 billion—down from the previous year’s $637 billion—distributed among 10 under-agencies.
These hard-earned taxpayer dollars go toward very crucial FAFSA loans for degrees in Gender Studies—or, if you’re a Harvard student, Taylor Swift—as well as, according to Wednesday’s press release, free COVID tests for public schools across the United States.
There are still quixotic attempts do realize Reagan’s dream to abolish the Department of Education. Just this year, Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky reintroduced House Bill 899 which, if passed, would terminate the department at the end of next month.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but that won’t be happening any time soon.
Groups like Moms for Liberty banded together during COVID lockdowns after parents finally wised up to Critical Race Theory and rewriting of history happening in the classroom. The populist momentum is gaining, but still has a long way to go.
But if you weren’t already ardently in favor of abolishing the education department, the best salesman for its elimination is Miguel Cardona, whom Central Casting would send down if a Hollywood asked for a prototypical ed sec.
Evidently, he has no grasp of recent American history. He pushes student-loan forgiveness – he also missed out on Shakespeare’s warning about being neither a lender nor a borrower. Literacy and math levels have plummeted since COVID.
Meanwhile, he subscribes to anti-science radical gender ideology and distributes it to America’s classrooms.
And yet, the man has at least three degrees, each of which alleging that he’s equipped to “educate” America’s youth.
But imagine a nation in which you could select your home state based on unique principles upheld in the public-school system…where school boards and state legislatures had more of a say in local affairs… and where you could send your kid to school confidently knowing they won’t receive top-down nonsense on every subject from Washington paper-shufflers and union aparatchiks.
Until then, don’t worry. The government will be “here to help.”
