I made that screen grab because I thought the choice of photograph was tragicomic. I'm just going to assume — I can't tell from the caption — that the building houses the Department of Education. It's poetic — no? — the dying sunlight, the leafless trees. It says... dire consequences.
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I will wager there will be no consequences.
"It's poetic — no? — the dying sunlight, the leafless trees. It says... dire consequences."
DC could turn into Pripyat, and it would be an improvement.
World to end per MSNBC. Kids won't get free food. Test scores will decline even further.
Consequences are always dire if they don't get more and more and more.
'Democrats and a union representing Education Department workers...' - but I repeat myself.
Maybe they can get together with those State Dept. ex-employees and compare the contents of their boxes. They could do a 'swap meet' !
The giant, expensive edifice brings to mind the $2.5 billion renovation of the Federal Reserve building, which right at the moment is not a good look.
RideSpaceMountain said...
"DC could turn into Pripyat, and it would be an improvement.”
That would require radiation, too. I recommend nuking it from orbit just to be sure.
Our Leftist Educational friends need to see it's the execrable job done by the Department, not them personally, that is the impetus behind this.
I trust this softens the blow.
...a union representing the Education Department... ?!?
Is there a union representing the
Department of Agriculture?
Department of Commerce?
Department of Defense?
Department of Energy?
Department of Health and Human Services?
Department of Homeland Security?
Department of Housing and Urban Development?
Department of the Interior?
Department of Justice?
Department of Labor?
Department of State?
Department of Transportation?
Department of the Treasury?
Department of Veterans Affairs?
The Department of Education spent $268.4 billion in fiscal year 2024. This was 4% of the $6.78 trillion in overall federal spending. Adjusting for inflation, the Department of Education’s federal spending has increased from $56.9 billion in 1980 to $268.4 billion in 2024.
Most federal spending can be categorized as direct or indirect. Direct spending refers to money the federal government spends on budget items such as federal programs, employee salaries, and debt interest. Indirect spending refers to federal transfers to state and local governments. In FY 2024, the Department of Education transferred 25.4% of its total spending to states and local governments.
In other words, the Department of Education kept 75% of its funding, which amounted to $201.3 billion (or 3% of the entire spending by the federal government).
Not a single person in the Department of Education provides any educational services to anyone in the country.
I can see that, without Congressional approval, Trump can't just abolish the Dept. But there's no requirement about numbers, is there? What were the numbers when it first started?
@Rocco, I have zero objections. DC has become the very leviathan the founders attempted to curtail by locating it in a swamp. The epithet is apt.
"The move by the justices represents an expansion of executive power" . . . I think that should read "clarifies executive power."
It’s a shame Jimmy Carter didn’t live long enough to another one of his failures come crashing down.
Look at the comments in the Times. Democrats are insane.
Dear God, please let the Democrats opposing the elimination of the Department of Education be the face of the Democratic Party in 2026.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
I saw the waterworks and spot interviews on X yesterday. These people quite literally believe they are entitled to government employment.
The gall. Go on, git. Good riddance.
Heeeeeere’s yer chainsaw!
I think that should read "clarifies executive power."
Yes! Trump is 16-0 in garnering such clarification so far this year, which is a good indicator how very clear the SCOTUS rulings will be if and when the cases sort out.
Remains of the day
Leafless bureaucracy's branches left nude
Whispers "dire consequences"
Now what was it our Leftist friends used to say to laid-off private sector workers?
Oh yeah ... Learn to code.
Not too funny now, is it?
Public school students currently read and do arithmetic at about the level of an embryo, so gutting the department can't do much harm.
I recall reading something decades ago about the Department of Education HQ building. IIRC, the building was designed a few years into the "Energy Crisis" and the design included solar heating. The problem was that someone had the not so bright idea of changing the building's orientation 90 degrees so the solar systems no longer faced south. I can't find any confirmation of what I read long ago, but the article illustrated how the DoEd wasn't populated by the nation's best and brightest.
Dire consequence: Trump will be made to write "I will not cut the Department of Education" 100 times. No autopen.
The Fall harvest is nearing. Crops gonna need a-pickin'
I was raised by a single mom who started out as a teacher and then moved up through various eduction industrial complex jobs, ending as a vice pricipal.
I get angry at that photo when I see a pretty, modern, expensive looking government building and I think "NOTHING" of value was produced by the folks inside of that building. Stick all the homeless and sickos in that bulding.
Remember those bumper stickers that said: If you think education is expensive, try ignorance!
The Dept. of Education appears to have taken this slogan literally.
That union should have no trouble making their argument. Just compare the progress of educational achievement in the US since 1980 with the per capita funding of the Department year over year.
What's that you say?
I see a sunrise reflection, and trees awaiting the warmth of spring to begin budding.
That's an amusing photo. The Department of Education building is behind that screen at the right. The screen is a somewhat abstract "mural" depicting the cliffs of Normandy and is part of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial. The grounds of the Memorial are in the center of the photo, between the camera and the Capitol Building. You really do have to look closely to see the Department of Education.
Wilbur said...
Now what was it our Leftist friends used to say to laid-off private sector workers?
Oh yeah ... Learn to code.
Not too funny now, is it?
****************
We should now return the taunt by advising them to "learn to weld".
If they don’t fire everyone authorized to spend money within the department every cent allocated by Congress will still be spent, innit?
Good riddance to the Obama Title IX Inquistors and the federal stooges for the teacher union pedophiles.
Anything that harms the ed unions, means less harm to every other good citizen.
Recall: The crooked WEAC and teacher union thugs conspiring with the equally crooked UW Hospital to forge fake doctor sick notes during their 2010 Insurrection in Madison against Scott Walker and taxpayers.
There is no doubt that our esteemed hostess was the most instrumental in exposing the UW doctors' criminal activity, and concerning the other thread, Prof Althous deserved a place in the WH Garden of Heroes for hr good work on that day.
In case you didn't know already, funding for the unions in the federal government is provided by the agencies they are in. The union reps are actually paid for by the government, and occupy positions allocated to a functional job. Of course, office space and supplies are also provided by the agency. We are all paying for them!
I like the juxtaposition I saw that 1400 government employees losing their job is a catastrophe, while crickets for the 9000 layoffs announced by Microsoft (the 9000 is just the latest, it is 15000 so far this year). In other news, Phillips 66 will close its California refinery ending 900 jobs.
We have a federal department of education and we have state departments of education and we have county boards of education and we have city boards of education. Massive, bureaucratic, wasteful overlap.
A large Department the size of a small Department.
@Ficta
Thanks. I guess that’s why the caption fails to say this is the Department of Education, but somehow they had that photograph in their file. It can’t be a case of sending someone over to take a picture of the building and then the person kind of screwed up and took a picture that was mostly of a structure in front of the building, because there are no leaves on the trees and it’s the middle of July
The RIF at issue sought to eliminate about 1,350 spots at the DOEd, leaving it with a workforce of about 2,100. And the case was filed within days of the RIF's effective date so any claim about its impact on DOEd's mandatory functions was just speculation about how it would play out. The SG's application for a stay made the obvious point that speculation isn't enough, but mostly focused on jurisdictional issues, basically contending that (i) the district court lacked jurisdiction to address the merits because terminated employees could only challenge their dismissals in the Merit Systems Protection Bd, with an appeal then to the Federal Circuit; and (ii) the court's equity jurisdiction did not extend to ordering reinstatement of a terminated employee. Plaintiffs (mostly gov't employee unions and states with Dem governors) tried to avoid that problem but their argument that they had greater or different rights than the terminated employees never made sense. Sotomayor's long dissent was premised on the claim that the RIF was effectively a determination to shut down the DOEd, but a department having 2,100 employees doesn't sound like an entity that's been shut down. That may be Trump's desired end-point, but it's not what the RIF actually accomplished. All of that left her (like plaintiffs) claiming loudly that Trump was defying the law by shutting down a cabinet agency without anything except rhetoric to establish her basic premise.
Bottom line -- no surprise here either in the result or in the rhetorical overkill in the dissent.
Cuts by Trump; annihilation by AI.
@tommyesq said: "the Department of Education kept 75% of its funding, which amounted to $201.3 billion " (in 2024)
@Richard Dolan said: "..The RIF at issue sought to eliminate about 1,350 spots at the DOEd, leaving it with a workforce of about 2,100..."
I say Old Boy, something doesn't quite add up here......How many of these billions were going towards wages, then?
I'm glad Althouse came up with a reason for the photo. Its sort a like an blank abstract painting. Most would dismiss it as a nothingburger but the artistic can read things into it others miss.
I'm sad we didn't get crying female employees, but I guess they're all at home.
My first thought at looking at the photo was "Why did they bother?", but maybe someone forgot to file a story and they needed to fill up the page.
Maybe they could have added wind blown tubbleweeds to make the point more obvious. Or a for sale sign.
Ah... So in 2024, 24.5% went to states, tribes and local public education, a lot of it geared toward supporting low-income students or students with disabilities; 70.92% went as direct aid to students in the form of Pell grants and student loans (which must be paid back). Administrative burden was a little over 3%.
But wait ! 3% of $268.4 billion is still over $8 billion - for 4,000 employees? I say Old Boy.....
oh noes cue Jeremy Clarkson,
Mr. T said...
"There is no doubt that our esteemed hostess was the most instrumental in exposing the UW doctors' criminal activity, and concerning the other thread, Prof Althous deserved a place in the WH Garden of Heroes for hr good work on that day."
Seconded.
The DOE is the most failed institution in America, and that's a high (low) bar. It has also managed to get worse the more money we give it, which is just awesome.
Dire as in Democrats can no longer bully the dreaded "right wing" education method.
bagoh20 said...
The DOE is the most failed institution in America, and that's a high (low) bar. It has also managed to get worse the more money we give it, which is just awesome.
They didn't fail.
Kids that have no knowledge of history, trouble reading and doing math, accept state propaganda, and a massively inflated sense of self worth was the goal.
Marxism requires it's adherents to lack necessary virtues.
I have long said the left talks about accomplishing great ("great" being in the eye of the beholder) things. But they don't.
DOE? Billions and billions spent. Money washed, dried and recycled to the left. Non-teaching positions multiply like crazed rabbits. Test scores fall like the last half of the Katy Perry astronaut experience.
What's not to love?
The DOE staff that was RIFed were going to post 8 1/2 x 11 sheets of copy paper stolen from the copier with the words 'RESIST' hand printed on them -- but they could not figure out the correct spelling.
much like the signs in the bradbury tale, 'sound of thunder' which they attributed to dutcher, the tyrant dejure,
"with the words 'RESIST' hand printed on them -- but they could not figure out the correct spelling."
No doubt, some spelled it "REVOLT" but to be fair, they probably were.
Has any metric of education improved since the creation of that department? It’s an honest question, so any honest answer is appreciated.
No, “money spent” is not a metric of achievement.
Because if the Federal government doesn’t control the nation’s schools, how are they going to create the Progressive equivalent of the Consumal/Hitlerjugend?
Education on the federal level is covered by the 10th Amendment seeing as it's not mentioned in the Constitution.
Moving it to the fed level was done with a wink & a nod...
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