During a recent interview with Fox News’ Martha MacCallum, Florida Governor and 2024 GOP presidential candidate Ron DeSantis was asked about government agencies he’d eliminate.
“We would do Education, we would do Commerce, we’d do Energy, and we would do IRS,” DeSantis declared.
“If Congress will work with me on doing that, we’ll be able to reduce the size and scope of government,” he continued. “If Congress won’t go that far, I’m going to use those agencies to push back against woke ideology and against the leftism that we see creeping into all institutions of American life.”
From The Daily Wire:
Two of the agencies DeSantis targeted were established by former President Jimmy Carter. He established the Department of Energy in 1977. The Department of Education was established in 1980, after the National Education Association, which had pushed for a federal agency since the turn of the century, made its first presidential endorsement ever by supporting Jimmy Carter in 1976. Carter’s running mate, Walter Mondale, whose brother was an NEA official, promised the NEA that a Carter administration would establish a Cabinet-level agency for education.
In order for a president to eliminate an agency of the federal government, the president must be granted presidential reorganization authority by Congress, and thus DeSantis would need to gain control of the Senate and keep control of the House to have a chance to set his plan in motion.
Presidential reorganization authority was first granted in 1932 and most recently granted to former President Ronald Reagan. Both former presidents George W. Bush in 2002 and Barack Obama in 2012 asked for such authority, but it was not granted. Neither president’s party had control over the entire Congress at the time.
More over at The Daily Wire:
DeSantis: I’ll Abolish Education, Energy, Commerce Depts — And The IRS https://t.co/SHv3nI5NWA pic.twitter.com/TTbbXFC0OP
— Daily Wire News (@DailyWireNews) June 29, 2023