What happened to abolishing the Department of Education?
by Veronique de Rugy & Marie Gryphon February 11, 2004 Veronique De Rugy is a fiscal-policy analyst and Marie Gryphon is an education-policy analyst with the Cato Institute. Massive political realignments are often underreported because political insiders have no incentive to discuss them. When one political party co-opts a policy supported by the other, the outmaneuvered party can’t acknowledge that its opponents are doing what it has pledged to do for years. The ascendant party gags disappointed loyalists by promising that any political capital gained will be spent on their causes. But that promise is rarely kept. Witness the realignment dynamic in George W. Bush’s education policy. As recently as 1996, the Republican party sought to abolish the Department of Education as an inappropriate intrusion into state, local and family affairs. The GOP platform that year was clear: “The Federal government has no constitutional authority to be involved in school curricula or to control jobs in