But what’s the point of doing this if they’re going to reassign work and workers to other agencies? It’s not gonna save any money. If they wanted to kill some programs to actually save money, they don’t need to disband the department.
I think the main idea is a shift in focus from being involved with education to just giving money to the states to do their own things for education. Certainly the US’s educational performance has been quite poor(*) since the 1980s when this started:
and lately it’s been a conduit for forcing leftist social goals on the states as a condition for getting the federal money. The Feds only supply about 10% of educational funding, so getting them out of the way seems better than not given their track record.
*= interestingly, part of the US’s poor educational outcomes vs other western developed countries appears less bad if you look at our average scores by race compared to the same race students elsewhere. Get out your magnifying glass for the chart below:
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Reassign the actual tasks being done (that you want to continue) and the employees actually needed to do them, and you’re left with a bloated bureaucracy that literally has nothing to do. That’s your savings. Just hacking away programs will save some money, but still leave most of the fat (and leave the fat with even less to “administer”).
Honestly, I see breaking it up like this, then bringing it back together in a new department completely rebuilt from the ground up with a more limited focus.
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Trump gave several speeches today, so of course lots of proposals and actions that might be reversed later.
- crypto reserve (by not doing anything except hodl’ing the seized crypto from criminals)
- plans to rebuild the strategic oil reserve, but slowly ($20B worth)
- cut off aid to South Africa over their anti-white policies, offering immigration to those harmed
- cut off aid to Columbia university over their pro-Hamas actions, antisemitism
- planning unspecified restrictions on the existing student loan forgiveness program (TBD)
- Capital One getting sued for de-banking some Trump-related conservative org
- peace talks with Russia (over Ukraine)
- peace talks also separately with Iran (over nukes)
- tariff this, tariff that, more delays and uncertainty (nothing new there)
Columbia article:
“Universities must comply with all federal antidiscrimination laws if they are going to receive federal funding,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement. “For too long, Columbia has abandoned that obligation to Jewish students studying on its campus.”
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USAID getting what they deserve it seems
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5185546-trump-administration-cuts-usaid/
A senior official at USAID instructed the agency’s remaining staff to convene at the agency’s now-former headquarters in Washington on Tuesday for an “all day” group effort to destroy documents stored there, many of which contain sensitive information.
“Shred as many documents first, and reserve the burn bags for when the shredder becomes unavailable or needs a break,” the email said… The email didn’t provide any reason for the document destruction.
Rubio said there were 5,200 contracts that were canceled that would have spent “tens of billions” of dollars. He described those contracts as not serving the U.S. and, in some cases, harming the country’s national interests.
“In consultation with Congress, we intend for the remaining 18 percent of programs we are keeping (approximately 1,000) to now be administered more effectively under the State Department,” Rubio said.
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LOL
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/13/senate-democrats-vote-funding-bill-elon-musk-00229284
Senate Dems brace to vote for a bill they hate — to block Elon Musk
Democrats appear on the cusp of voting to avoid a shutdown because they fear the consequences of standing up to the Trump administration could be worse.
The announcement late Thursday by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer that he would support the House GOP’s seven-month stopgap measure was an acknowledgment that Democrats have little choice if they want to avoid empowering Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency initiative to unilaterally halt more federal programs under the cover of a shutdown.
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Apparently Biden didn’t sign most of his laws or pardons himself according to a signature analysis (nearly all were identical except his mysterious resignation and Kamala endorsement letter after he disappeared for several days).
So now there’s some serious consternation among the Democrat elites and Biden family since Trump said their pardons were invalid since Biden didn’t actually sign them.
Won’t matter much to Hunter who is dodging a lawsuit on vacation in S Africa, with over a dozen secret service members in tow.
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The confrontation between article 2, the president and article 3 the judiciary is building up. Will be interesting to see if Roberts and Scotus step in to try to cool things off.
Article 1 is also stepping in
The mere thought of not wasting government money must give the left heart palpitations. In the middle of a widespread initiative to curb government waste, even Trump tries to do his part by recruiting sponsors to cover the costs of a popular annual event that costs the government hundreds of thousands each year. And yet he again gets crucified for it.
You’d think they’d appreciate him not simply cancelling the event as not being a core government function. But of course, the article is written to imply that Trump is seeking sponsorers for his own gain (and the headline outright equates this to selling naming rights to the White House). It’s OUR money he’s saving, not his.
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For years, Florida has been trying to return federal funds to the federal government due to the ideological strings attached by the Biden Administration—but they couldn’t even figure out how to accept it,” DeSantis wrote in a post on X. “Today, I met with @elonmusk and the DOGE team, and we got this done in the same day.”
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This would be more convincing if he wasn’t pissing away 10x that already in golf trips.
Vote with your feet, the 2030 edition. Estimates for census changes in Congress looking bad for Democrats as blue states lose population and hence seats.
Florida and Texas could see especially large increases of four seats each, with Texas within striking distance of adding a fifth seat. North Carolina would also see its congressional delegation increase by a seat.
California and New York, which have seen significant population outflows this decade, are projected to lose four and two districts respectively. For California, this would be only the second time in its history it has lost representation (the first was this decade when the Golden State lost one seat). Based on current data, Illinois, Minnesota, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin would all see one-seat decreases.
This will only get worse if Trump follows through with prior plans to make the census only count citizens and not illegals, since sanctuary states have more than their share of those getting counted for extra Congressional years now.
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But a lot of red states are red by a pretty small margin. An influx of blue voters could put them in play and flip districts.
Or, if it is red voters leaving, it could make some of those swing states less swingy. Maybe they get one less district, but the remaining districts will be a more solid blue.
Who is moving seems to be much more important than how many move.
Interview of Elon Musk and the doge team. Serious, intelligent and well meaning people.
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Obviously they’re just con men who are bamboozling us. The democratic establishment clearly knows what these people “actually” mean and do, regardless of what they’ve said and done…
The Las Vegas Tesla dealership terrorist. Paul Hyon Kim. Has ties to communist party, USA and pro-Hamas, anti-Israel group. Faces decades in federal prison.
Edit.
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Finally watched that one you posted.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7kQNwJ4H_w
Good interview with the various impressive people on Doge and how they’re working to cut fraud, modernize systems, etc. It’s like they say, “a billion here, a billion there”… adds up.
It’s shocking how badly the government is run because it’s not their money and there’s been no accountability for decades.
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“After going through all that stuff with the corrupt courts in New York, I think I have a pretty good handle on how things work,” Trump said. “There can’t be that much to it. Just bang the wooden hammer thing and create your own rules and laws all the time. Some are saying I’m going to be the best District Court judge that ever lived. I didn’t say it, but some have.”
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Lawfare in France succeeds where it failed in the US to stop their New Right from voting in their favorite leader. A left wing judge has decided some minor election spending issue should ban Marine Le Pen from running for President.
Marine Le Pen is easily the most popular politician in France.
On Sunday, a poll found her the clear front-runner for the 2027 Presidential election. On Monday, a French court said she couldn’t run.
A judge in Paris found Le Pen and her right-wing National Rally party had used funds from the European Union to pay party workers. For this sin, the judge sentenced Le Pen to two years of house arrest — and banned her from the 2027 election.
Legacy media outlets, in Europe and the United States, call the National Rally party “far right.” Almost definitionally, that can’t be true; the most popular party in a democracy can be conservative, liberal, even communist, but it can’t be far anything.
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Sure it can. It’s all relative. Even if it’s not “far” in a single country, it can be “far” relative to the world, history, etc.