School's Out
Reinventing federalism one signature at a time means giving the states more control.
Trump Signs Executive Order Dismantling Department of Education
It’s an interesting test of federalism and the 10th Amendment. The constitution does not delegate education as a power of the federal government; it is a state domain. Federalism means the federal government, in practice, influences state education policy with money.
The argument for dismantling the Education Department is simple. The use of funding has done nothing and is not intended to improve pedagogical outcomes; it is a political slush fund for the promotion of various agendas. Treasury is more than capable of anodyne fiscal transfers to the states. State governments can then determine the best use of these funds for educational purposes.
People are upset because a lot of people are going to lose influence and, more viscerally, funding for their pet projects and NGOs – unless they can convince the state to get onboard.
‘Trump’s order directs Education Secretary Linda McMahon to take the “necessary steps” to close the $268 billion agency and transfer its authority back to the states. The order does not immediately shutter the agency, and it will require programs and services to continue uninterrupted.’
Trump Signs Order Seeking to Abolish Education Department
Maybe the mishigas with the student loan program triggered this whole thing.
Without Congressional approval, it’s unlikely that he gets everything he wants, but Trump will follow the ask-for-the-moon-and-grab-more-than-I-should strategy in negotiations while diluting the department on a de facto, if not a de jure, basis.
‘Trump recently suggested moving student loans to the Small Business Administration or the Treasury or Commerce departments. The Education Department has reduced staff and encouraged others to voluntarily leave through buyouts. McMahon made deep cuts to the department’s Office for Civil Rights.
‘The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, a conservative blueprint for a GOP administration, proposed putting funding for students with disabilities under the Department of Health and Human Services and the Office for Civil Rights in the Justice Department.’
Abolish Cigie to Save the Constitution
More pushback on independent agencies. Succeed or fail, this will be a major lynchpin of Trump’s second Administration.
‘Cigie’s structure raises constitutional problems because of its investigative power. Probes into inspectors general and their staffs go through Cigie’s six-person Integrity Committee. Four of the committee members are inspectors general appointed by the Cigie chairman, one is an official from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and one is either the director of the Office of Government Ethics or someone he designates. None of these officials are appointed to the committee or removable from it by the president.
‘The Integrity Committee thus has the power to investigate members of the executive branch, issue damaging reports on them, and recommend sanctions, including termination. The findings are sometimes published before the president makes a decision, causing injury to their targets. Yet the committee is unaccountable to the president or anyone else.’
Six Ways to Understand DOGE and Predict Its Future Behavior
Cato looks at six different theories of DOGE. This underscores the difficulty in understanding this emergent phenomenon. My sense is that they’re all off the mark, even though they individually smack of truth.
Trying to explain DOGE at this point is equivalent to debating the number of angels who can dance on the head of a pin.
‘Successfully affecting DOGE’s behavior from the outside requires understanding, at least somewhat, its goals and how it functions. This abridged history of its shifting mission doesn’t tell us where DOGE is headed, nor does it explain why it has behaved in the way it has to this point. Others have struggled with explaining DOGE. Santi Ruiz, for instance, has many insightful observations, but he doesn’t have a coherent model or set of models for interpreting its actions. Below are six theoretical models for understanding DOGE’s action to date, each with supporting evidence.’
Accenture Begins to Feel the Trump Crackdown on Consultants
Ruh roh. The government wants its contractors to justify what they do without using jargon.
‘The GSA letter calls on the companies to identify waste and spending reduction opportunities, and to detail how pricing is structured for each contract. Firms will also need to explain their work in clear language.
‘A “15 year old should be able to understand what service you provide and why it is important—no consultative jargon or gobbledygook,” the letter notes. It also says the GSA expects firms to make pricing concessions.’
Caleb Watney on risk and science funding
The growth in administration surrounding research and development is now strangling this critical endeavor because cost cuts are being applied indiscriminately.
It’s the bureaucracy, stupid.
‘Right now, DOGE is treating efficiency as a simple cost-cutting exercise. But science isn’t a procurement process; it’s an investment portfolio. If a venture capital firm measured efficiency purely by how little money it spent, rather than by the returns it generated, it wouldn’t last long. We invest in scientific research because we want returns — in knowledge, in lifesaving drugs, in technological capability. Generating those returns sometimes requires spending money on things that don’t fit neatly into a single grant proposal.
‘While it’s true that indirect costs serve an important function, they can also create perverse incentives: When the government promises to cover expenses, expenses tend to go up. But instead of slashing funding indiscriminately, we should be thinking about how to get the most out of every dollar we invest in science.
‘That means streamlining research regulations. Universities are drowning in bureaucracy. Since 1990, there have been 270 new rules that complicate how we conduct research. Institutional Review Boards, intended to protect people from being unethically experimented on in studies, now regularly review low-risk social science surveys that pose no real ethical concerns. Researchers generate reams of paperwork in legally mandated disclosures of every foreign contract and collaboration, even for countries such as the Netherlands that present no geopolitical risk.
‘We must also rethink how we select scientific research to fund.’