Editor’s Note: The following statement was originally published by the National Association of Scholars on June 15, 2026. It is crossposted here with permission.

Congressman John Garamendi’s office issued a press release on July 14, bemoaning the Trump administration’s plans to pass on the Department of Education (ED) building in Washington to the Department of Energy. Rep. Garamandi is quoted as saying: 

By handing the Department of Education’s building over to another agency, they are taking another step toward their goal of permanently dismantling the Department of Education.

If you lose the building, you make it significantly more difficult to rebuild the Department’s staffing and operations in the future. This isn’t just about office space—it’s about whether we preserve the ability to rebuild the Department of Education for future generations.

I will always fight to ensure our children receive the best education possible. Today’s vote only further proves that Republicans and President Trump would rather invest in more nuclear weapons than in our nation’s schools.

Well, yes. The ED has been a blight on American education, and the Trump administration, unsurprisingly, is keenly aware of the importance of real estate for policy. The National Association of Scholars (NAS) delightedly endorses the Trump administration’s marvelously astute work to make permanent the reduction-to-elimination of the ED.

We note, by the by, that the Congressman’s press release recycles one of the more hackneyed bits of education establishment polemic, that the federal government spends more on nuclear weapons than it does on education. Naturally so: the large majority of public education spending comes from the states and the localities. The federal government focuses on its appropriate sphere, which includes national defense. The states and localities can spend so much on education because they don’t have to budget for their own nuclear weapons programs.

Given the challenges America faces from China, Russia, and Iran, and the spread of drones and artificial intelligence (AI) to state and non-state actors, we are, in any case, probably going to see rising federal expenditures for the military in the next few years. This is a good thing in itself. And, given the useless-to-disastrous results of federal education expenditures in the last few generations, we will be just about guaranteed to get more bang for our bucks.

Confected outrage is the tribute that vice pays to virtue. Education reformers and all Americans should be happy to note that the Trump administration has done unprecedented, creative, and effective work to permanently reduce our federal education bureaucracy. Not least is the disincentive for future activists and paper-pushers to sign up for a career in the ED; now they know, viscerally, that homelessness can happen to you.

With any luck, would-be educrats will do America a favor and choose a different line of work.

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