Thread: Trump picks Betsy DeVos as Education Secretary

See The Latest: Charter school advocate picked for education job


November 23rd 2016


”Trump calls DeVos "a brilliant and passionate education advocate."

DeVos heads the advocacy group American Federation for Children. She's known for supporting charter schools and vouchers.

Before Trump's announcement, some conservatives were complaining about DeVos' ties to the political establishment. They also warned that she previously supported Common Core standards that Trump railed against during the campaign.”


Instead of working to actually drain the swamp and close down the unconstitutional activities carried on at the federal Department of Education, it appears Trump has decided to replace John B. King, Jr., the swamp’s current Secretary of Education, with Betsy DeVos.


Currently, the federal Department of Education has a budget of about $68 BILLION and over 4 thousand employees who are not only paid more than your average private sector worker, but they are likewise given a very, very generous pension for redistributing tax revenue for a function not authorized by our written Constitution. Unless Betsy DeVos has been picked by Donald Trump to close down the federal Department of Education, it would appear his intention is merely to surround himself with new swamp creatures which suck our blood like ticks and fleas while spitting on our Constitution. Let us look at the facts.


The People of Maryland, as every State in the Union, has delegated the power for a state funded and regulated public school system to their state elected officials, and not to the Congress of the United States --- the wording in Maryland’s Constitution, for example, is as follows:


“The General Assembly, at its First Session after the adoption of this Constitution, shall by Law establish throughout the State a thorough and efficient System of Free Public Schools; and shall provide by taxation, or otherwise, for their maintenance.” ___ Article 8, Sect. 1


The Maryland Constitutional also states, in emphatic terms:



“the People of this State have the sole and exclusive right of regulating the internal government and police thereof, as a free, sovereign and independent State.”--- Art. 4 Maryland’s Declaration of Rights.


In addition, the Maryland Constitution also states:


“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution thereof, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people thereof.”---Art. 3, Maryland’s Declaration of Rights


It should also be noted that Federalist No. 45 sums up the federal government’s authorized and limited functions as follows:


“The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected.


The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State.”


These words were in fact given force and effect by the adoption of the federal Constitution’s Tenth Amendment which states:


“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States, respectively, or to the people.” --- United States Constitution, Tenth Amendment.


The bottom line is, Congress has not been granted power by the federal Constitution to tax for, spend on, and regulate public school systems established under state constitutions.


It is also important to note that our very own Supreme Court, less than twenty years after the adoption of our Constitution confirms the limited nature of our federal government. The Court states:


“The government of the United States is of the latter description. The powers of the legislature are defined and limited; and that those limits may not be mistaken or forgotten, the constitution is written. To what purpose are powers limited, and to what purpose is that limitation committed to writing; if these limits may, at any time, be passed by those intended to be restrained? The distinction between a government with limited and unlimited powers is abolished, if those limits do not confine the persons on whom they are imposed, and if acts prohibited and acts allowed are of equal obligation. It is a proposition too plain to be contested, that the constitution controls any legislative act repugnant to it; or, that the legislature may alter the constitution by an ordinary act.


Between these alternatives there is no middle ground. The constitution is either a superior, paramount law, unchangeable by ordinary means, or it is on a level with ordinary legislative acts, and like other acts, is alterable when the legislature shall please to alter it.


If the former part of the alternative be true, then a legislative act contrary to the constitution is not law: if the latter part be true, then written constitutions are absurd attempts, on the part of the people, to limit a power in its own nature illimitable.


Certainly all those who have framed written constitutions contemplate them as forming the fundamental and paramount law of the nation, and consequently the theory of every such government must be, that an act of the legislature repugnant to the constitution is void.” --- MARBURY v. MADISON, 5 U.S. 137 (1803)


So, if Donald Trump has in fact selected Betsy DeVos to be the federal government’s Secretary of Education with a mission to close down the federal Department of Education, then I would say he is standing by his promise to drain the swamp. But if president elect Trump has chosen DeVos to continue redistributing tax revenue for a function not authorized by our written Constitution, then I would say he has already proven to be a con artist and fraud as so many have charged he is.


JWK



"The Constitution is the act of the people, speaking in their original character, and defining the permanent conditions of the social alliance; and there can be no doubt on the point with us, that every act of the legislative power contrary to the true intent and meaning of the Constitution, is absolutely null and void. ___ Chancellor James Kent, in his Commentaries on American Law, 1858

Many are disappointed that Betsy DeVos was Mr. Trump 's choice for Education since she has supported Common Core. She is also praised by Jeb Bush, another backer of Common Core.

She was originally for Common Core but she's made statements since then here she claims the government totally messed it up and she reversed her support for it. I think the reason she was selected is her support for school choice, charter schools and vouchers.

Donald Trump ought to be promoting the necessity to close down the unconstitutional federal Department of Education which sucks the blood of American taxpayers; redistributes tax revenue with nefarious political views in mind; and rewards federal loyalists with jobs and benefits far greater than those in the private sector.


JWK

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States, respectively, or to the people.___ Tenth Amendment

I have no problem with a Federal Department of Education if it's educating. If it's politicizing and running up the tab, then the politics needs to be removed and the tab reduced, starting with a policy that no federal funds will be used to fund the education of anyone in our country in violation of US immigration law which should solve both problems pretty damn quick.

Originally Posted by Judy

I have no problem with a Federal Department of Education if it's educating. If it's politicizing and running up the tab, then the politics needs to be removed and the tab reduced, starting with a policy that no federal funds will be used to fund the education of anyone in our country in violation of US immigration law which should solve both problems pretty damn quick.

Well, I do have a problem with the unconstitutional federal Department of Education.

With the appointment of Betsy DeVos to run the unconstitutional federal Department of Education, It appears Trump has no intention to drain the 4,400 swamp creatures employed at the federal Department of Education who live large on our tax dollars.

”The average annual federal workers compensation, including pay plus benefits, exceeds $124,000 compared to just $61,051 for the private sector according to the United States Bureau of Economic Analysis.”--- see FEDERAL EMPLOYEE OVERVIEW


Trump ought to propose closing down the unconstitutional federal Department of Education and then reduce federal taxation by the current amount spent by our federal government on on education, which leaves this money in the hands of the people and allows them to control their own state and local public school systems. The immediate savings in such a plan is eliminating the 4,400 federal swamp creatures at the federal Department of Education which suck our blood like ticks and fleas, and haven’t taught one single student how to add one and one.

Would it not be a blessing to rid ourselves of the swamp creatures at the federal Department of Education?

JWK




Today’s corrupted politics is all about the Benjamins, and which political party's leadership will put their hand deeper into the productive working person’s pocket.

Hold your horses, wait and see what he does. He's already said he wants to take education "local", and while there will still need to be a US Department of Education if federal fund continue to be injected into the system, no way around that, it will and should be much smaller. He's already said that's one of his goals.

Originally Posted by Judy

Hold your horses, wait and see what he does. He's already said he wants to take education "local", and while there will still need to be a US Department of Education if federal fund continue to be injected into the system, no way around that, it will and should be much smaller. He's already said that's one of his goals.

And just what is Betsy DeVos' job? Is it not to manage a bloated federal agency unauthorized by our written Constitution?


How can Betsy DeVos' involve herself in teaching our nation's younger generation about our Constitutionally limited system of government, when the federal Department of Education's very existence violates the defined and limited powers granted by our Constitution?


JWK

" I believe that there are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachment of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations." ___ Madison Elliot`s Debates, vol. III, page 87