The budget the Trump administration released on March 11 is getting heat from the Left and the press, particularly for the education cuts it recommends. Even though the budget isn’t likely to pass, much of the proposals are exactly what one would find in a conservative administration, even if government is still growing and spending too much.
The budget proposal requests a $7 billion cut in funding for the Education Department, even more than last year’s. The proposal asks Congress to do several things related to education, including:
- Open Pell Grants to “high-quality” short-term programs.
- Eliminate Public Service Loan Forgiveness and subsidized student loans.
- Streamline income-driven repayment programs for student borrowers.
- Increase funds for charter schools by $60 million.
- $100 million for new school-safety grants. The grants would help schools create emergency plans and improve access to counseling, mental-health services, and similar strategies to improve school climate.
In the Atlantic, Adam Harris bemoans: “Instead, more than anything, the proposal is an exposition of the administration’s philosophy on education: It is a state and local issue that the federal government shouldn’t have its hands in.” Washington Post columnist Katrina vanden Heuvel calls Trump’s budget a “bitter betrayal.”
It’s easy to see why liberals might balk at Trump’s elimination of Public Service Loan Forgiveness, and teachers’ union fanatics definitely loathe the allocation of funds to charter schools. These are fairly normal conservative reforms. Many conservatives, like myself, might even say all education should be privatized, but that will never happen. The next best thing is to keep government growth and spending lean, keep government out of education as much as possible and in the hands of the people who know their children best, and to eliminate unnecessary spending and programs.
The best example of this is the Education Department’s expanded funding for charter schools. Students in charter schools are generally succeeding at higher rates than the average public school. Thus, giving them more funding actually seems far more fiscally responsible, especially given that they spend less per student and still get better results.
The federal government does not exist to provide money, jobs, education, healthcare, or any other thing that resembles happiness, to the people. It exists to simply give people the freedom to pursue said happiness. Trump’s budget isn’t perfect. He’s still overspending money that isn’t his. But at least it’s somewhat representative of a more conservative philosophy to the degree that this is possible in a government such as ours that is already too greedy and large.
Nicole Russell (@russell_nm) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. She is a journalist who previously worked in Republican politics in Minnesota.
