Trump Admin Steps Up Push to Dismantle Education Department
Happy Tuesday! After a monthslong fight, the House and Senate passed a bill requiring the Justice Department to release files in the case of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. A 427-1 vote in the House was followed by quick Senate passage by unanimous consent. Those approvals came after President Trump abruptly dropped his fierce opposition to the measure once it became clear in recent days that the vote would succeed.
Trump on Tuesday also welcomed Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to the White House and lashed out at questions about the Epstein files and the Saudi leader's role in the 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Here's what else is happening.
Trump Admin Steps Up Push to Dismantle Education Department
The Department of Education announced Tuesday that it is shifting some of its key functions to other parts of the federal government as part of President Trump's plan to dismantle and eventually eliminate the agency.
Trump signed an executive order in March directing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to "take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return authority over education to the States and local communities."
McMahon said Tuesday that in its "final mission," the department "is taking bold action to break up the federal education bureaucracy and return education to the states."
What's changing: The department unveiled six new interagency agreements with four federal agencies that will now handle various education functions.
According to the announcement, the Department of Labor will take a greater role in administering programs that support K-12 education, "ensuring these programs are better aligned with workforce and college programs to set students up for success at every part of their education journey." Labor will also start to oversee "most postsecondary education grant programs authorized under the Higher Education Act" of 1965.
The Department of the Interior will play a greater role in managing "Indian Education programs" at all levels, including vocational programs.
The Department of Health and Human Services will oversee the accreditation of foreign medical schools. HHS will also initiate a program to improve childcare facilities on college campuses.
The Department of State will take a larger role overseeing international education grants, since it is "best positioned to tailor foreign language education programs with the national security and foreign policy priorities of the United States."
A long-running conservative target: The Department of Education celebrated its coming demise with a video shared on social media featuring a number of eminent Republicans - including Ronald Reagan, Bob Dole, Newt Gingrich and, finally, Trump - talking about their desire to shut down the agency. "A better education doesn't mean a bigger Department of Education," Reagan said in 1983. "In fact, that department should be abolished."
Although many Republicans have long dreamed of eliminating the department, not all agree that it should be taken apart, nor that any such destruction should be carried out by the executive without congressional authorization. The power to eliminate a federal department lies with Congress, and lawmakers have not addressed the issue, raising questions about the legality of Trump's effort.
"The United States Congress created the U.S. Department of Education for very good reason," GOP Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick said in a statement Tuesday. "And for millions of families, particularly those raising children with disabilities or living in low-income communities, the Department's core offices are not discretionary functions. They are foundational."
Democrats generally agree that the department should remain intact, unless Congress says otherwise. "This is an outright illegal effort to continue dismantling the Department of Education," Sen. Patty Murray said, "and it is students and families who will suffer the consequences as key programs that help students learn to read or that strengthen ties between schools and families are spun off to agencies with little to no relevant expertise and are gravely weakened-or even completely broken-in the process."
Kevin Carey, who focuses on education at the liberal-leaning New American Foundation, said the administration's moves will ultimately waste resources, despite being pitched as efficiency measures. "Secretary McMahon is creating a bureaucratic Rube Goldberg machine that will waste millions of taxpayer dollars by outsourcing vital programs to other agencies," he said. "It's like paying a contractor double to mow your lawn and then claiming you've cut the home maintenance budget. It makes no sense."
Trump administration presses on: In a briefing to reporters, the Department of Education defended the legality of the changes it is making, arguing that it maintains ultimate statutory responsibility, even if specific functions will be executed by other agencies. And some key functions, including special-education services and civil rights monitoring, remain fully within the department, although officials are reportedly looking for ways to move them elsewhere.
Still, there doesn't seem to be much doubt that the Trump administration aims to strip the Department of Education down as much as it can, even if it leaves a small husk in place to satisfy legal challenges.
Tuesday's briefing was led by Lindsey Burke, the department's deputy chief of staff for policy and programs. Before working in the Trump administration, Burke helped write the education section of Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation's blueprint for conservative rule under a potential Trump administration. In that section, Heritage made it clear that it wants to dismantle the department.
"The federal Department of Education should be eliminated," the Project 2025 plan says. "When power is exercised, it should empower students and families, not government."
Trump's Tariff Refund Checks Could Cost $450 Billion: Analysis
President Trump has pledged to send most Americans a $2,000 "dividend" or refund payment based on revenues produced by his aggressive tariff policies, with checks arriving at some point next year.
Although administration officials are reportedly looking for ways to send out payments without approval from lawmakers, any such program will likely require authorization from Congress. Aside from the legal questions, there is also the matter of cost, which some estimates say could exceed the amount of all customs revenues collected in a year, even with Trump's increases in the tariff level, which now averages about 18% overall.
A new analysis from the nonpartisan Yale Budget Lab puts a price tag on the tariff refund program: $450 billion, or about twice as much as the tariffs are expected to generate next year.
The analysis assumes that the $2,000 checks would be sent to all people (including children) in "tax units" that earn less than $100,000, a threshold that has been mentioned by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
Alternatively, if Congress limits the payouts to adults only, the cost drops to between $333 billion and $364 billion, depending on whether the benefit is phased out or ends with a cliff at the income threshold, less than 0.1 percentage points this year and 0.2 percentage points after 10 years.
The analysis also provides a rough sense of the macroeconomic effects of such a program. The refund checks would have no long-term effects on GDP or unemployment, since they are assumed to be one-time payments. They would, however, raise the price level, though only slightly, less than 0.1 percentage points next year and about 0.2 percentage points after 10 years.
Trump Tells Congress Not to 'Waste' Time on ACA Subsidies
As House and Senate lawmakers try to find a cure for rising healthcare costs ahead of the December 31 expiration of more generous Affordable Care Act subsidies, President Trump on Tuesday said he won't support extending those tax credits.
"THE ONLY HEALTHCARE I WILL SUPPORT OR APPROVE IS SENDING THE MONEY DIRECTLY BACK TO THE PEOPLE, WITH NOTHING GOING TO THE BIG, FAT, RICH INSURANCE COMPANIES, WHO HAVE MADE $TRILLIONS, AND RIPPED OFF AMERICA LONG ENOUGH," Trump wrote on his social media platform.
Trump again touted a vague plan to allow Americans to "negotiate and buy" their own insurance. "Congress, do not waste your time and energy on anything else," he wrote. "This is the only way to have great Healthcare in America!!! GET IT DONE, NOW."
Trump's comments come as House Republicans are launching into discussions about how they want to address healthcare costs, with party leaders reportedly slamming the expiring tax credits in an initial conference-wide conversation that reportedly took place on Tuesday.
A recent poll found that 74% of Americans want the subsidies renewed, but Republicans are divided, with moderates willing to extend the subsidies, perhaps with tighter income caps or other restrictions, and conservatives dead set against them and more interested in a broader healthcare overhaul - one that could potentially send Obamacare into a death spiral.
"Conservatives in the House Freedom Caucus and Republican Study Committee, for instance, have excoriated the enhanced premium tax credits as hand-outs for insurance companies," Politico's Benjamin Guggenheim noted. "At the same time, leadership and the committee chairs also have to reckon with a vocal group of GOP moderates who see an extension of the Obamacare subsidies as central to their political survival in next year's midterms."
Finding broad agreement within the conference may be difficult - and doing so quickly enough to prevent some 24 million Americans from facing a huge spike in premium costs could be even more challenging.
Senate Republicans are further ahead in laying out policy proposals, such as a plan from Sen. Bill Cassidy to directly fund individual health savings accounts, though it's not yet clear whether they can coalesce around a specific plan with the support of the White House - or whether they can avoid the political pitfalls and intraparty differences that bedeviled them for years as they sought to "repeal and replace" the Affordable Care Act.
It's also not clear whether any GOP plan that adhered to Trump's outline could get enough Democratic votes to pass the Senate this year or whether Republicans will ultimately look to pass another party-line budget reconciliation bill containing their policies. Also unclear: whether proposed GOP changes would actually result in improved affordability or avoid massive coverage losses.
Larry Levitt, the executive vice president at health policy research organization KFF, warned that Trump's direct payment proposal carries risks. "This sounds like an effort to let people bypass the ACA," Levitt wrote on X. "Healthy people could buy cheaper insurance that doesn't cover pre-existing conditions, sending the ACA into a premium death spiral." Levitt added that he did not believe that Cassidy's plan, which would require people to keep a bronze-level Obamacare plan to be eligible for the federal HSA money, would cause the same death spiral, though the loss of ACA subsidies might make it harder for people to buy plans with affordable deductibles.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer dismissed Trump's post, arguing that it showed Trump does not understand the healthcare issue. "Donald Trump's unhinged ramblings shows he still has no idea how anything actually works," Schumer said in a statement. "His 'plan' makes no sense. Sending people a few thousand dollars while doing nothing to lower healthcare costs is a scheme to help the ultra-wealthy at the expense of working people with cancer or pre-existing conditions."
Number of the Day: $4.3 Million
The Trump administration has reversed a decision to defund a government oversight group called the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE), an independent body that coordinates all 72 offices of inspectors general across the government. The Office of Management and Budget decided to release roughly $4.3 million in funding for the group, allowing its staff to return to its watchdog work. The move came after key lawmakers in both parties had called on the administration to release congressionally approved funding for CIGIE. Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Chuck Grassley of Iowa, who chair the Senate Committees on Appropriations and Judiciary, respectively, said they welcomed the decision. Their statement added that the White House budget office will be conducting a programmatic review of CIGIE's activities.
Fiscal News Roundup
- Trump Defends Saudi Crown Prince, Who US Intelligence Found Ordered Killing of Washington Post Columnist – Politico
- Trump Tells Congress Don't 'Waste' Time on Obamacare Credits – Bloomberg
- House GOP Leaders Pitch Members on Addressing 'Unaffordable Care Act' – Politico
- White House Plans to Release Health Bill and Backs Reconciliation – Politico
- Schumer Dismisses 'Unhinged' Trump 'Ramblings' on Direct Health Care Payments – The Hill
- Sanders Pushes Senate Dems to Go Big on Health Care Deal – Axios
- In Blow to Trump, Federal Judges Block New Texas Congressional Map – Politico
- Trump Administration Moves to Deny Green Cards for Those Who Use Safety Net Programs – The Hill
- Trump Administration to Announce Dismantling of Some of Education Dept. – Washington Post
- White House Looking to Issue Tariff Checks Without Congress – Bloomberg Government
- Trump's $2,000 Tariff Checks Would Cost $450 Billion, Analysis Finds – Axios
- How Betting on Tariff Refunds Became a Hot New Trade – Bloomberg
- Democrats Seek to Halt Trump's Reported Plan to Sell Off Student Loan Portfolio – The Hill
- There's a New Effort on the Runway to Raise Climate Funds – New York Times
- Few Rules Govern Contributions to Congressional Portrait Funds – NOTUS
Views and Analysis
- Republicans Will Never Find a Health Care Replacement – Ryan Cooper, American Prospect
- Cheaper Coffee and Tomatoes Won't Fix the Inflation Problem – Jonathan Levin, Bloomberg
- When the G.O.P. Medicaid Cuts Arrive, These Hospitals Will Be Hit Hardest – Emily Badger, Alicia Parlapiano and Margot Sanger-Katz, New York Times
- Higher Tariffs Take Toll on Global Growth, and Impact Is Set to Linger – Paul Hannon, Wall Street Journal
- Tariff Rebate Checks Won't Help Families. Ending the Trade War Would – Alex Durante, Tax Foundation
- California's Wealth-Tax Test – Washington Post Editorial Board
- Appropriations Back on Track? – Aidan Quigley, Aris Folley and David Lerman, Roll Call (podcast)
- The Real Fix for ObamaCare – Tony LoSasso and Kosali Simon, Wall Street Journal
- Hitting Retirement Age in 2026? This Social Security Change Could Impact You. – Aimee Picchi, CBS News
- An 8 Percent Lifetime 'Tax' Is Coming for Students – Eric A. Hanushek, Washington Post
- 'Affordability' Costs a Bundle – William McGurn, Wall Street Journal
- 7 Signs Trump Is Losing His Groove – Kyle Cheney, Politico