by Adam Dick
February 7, 2026 - The Fascist Police States of Amerika House of Representatives has approved funding for the Department of Education (DOE) for fiscal year 2026 at about the same level as each of the previous two years. This action was at odds with President Donald J. Trump, who is from the same political Party as the House and Senate majorities, having promoted during his 2024 presidential campaign and since his desire to drastically reduce and even eliminate this Cabinet department.
On Tuesday, President Trump signed into law the Consolidated Appropriations Act (HR 7148) that funds the Department of Education for fiscal year 2026 with a slight increase percentagewise over last year’s amount.
Eric Boehm provided in a Reason article, details about provisions in HR 7148 concerning the Department of Education that, in addition to continuing funding at about the same level as before President Trump started his current presidential term, include “language that prohibits parts of the department from being downsized or decentralized.”
The Department of Education is getting a bigger budget less than a year after President Donald Trump ordered the department's closure. On the campaign trail in 2024, President Trump repeatedly pledged to close the Department of Education and return oversight of public schooling to the states.
President Trump has a habit of throwing undercooked ideas around, but this wasn't one of them. Abolishing the DOE was part of the Republican Party’s platform for the 2024 election and was included in the goals of "Project 2025," the Heritage Foundation's blueprint for a conservative-controlled federal government in the wake of that election. That effort seemingly culminated with a March 2025 executive order signed by President Trump that ordered Education Secretary Linda McMahon to take steps to close the department and return its functions to the states.
"I told Linda, 'Linda, I hope you do a great job in putting yourself out of a job.' I want her to put herself out of a job," President Trump said at one point. A year later, McMahon's job looks as secure as ever.
The omnibus appropriations bill that President Trump signed on Tuesday to fund the federal government for the rest of the fiscal year directs $79 billion in taxpayer money to the DOE. That is a larger budget (by about $200 million) than the department had in fiscal year 2025, and it is $12 billion more than the President Trump regime requested in its budget proposal for the year.
That is despite the fact that the department is in the process of offloading some of its programs to other parts of the federal government. In November, McMahon announced that the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education would be shifted to the Labor Department and the Indian Education Program would be moved to the Department of the Interior, among other things. Why does a smaller DOE require a bigger budget?
The bill President Trump signed also includes language that prohibits parts of the department from being downsized or decentralized. "None of the funds provided by this Act may be used for any activity relating to implementing a reorganization that decentralizes, reduces the staffing level, or alters the responsibilities, structure, authority or function" of the Department of Education's budget office, the law reads.
HR 7158 also mandates that the department "shall support staffing levels necessary to fulfill its statutory responsibilities including carrying out programs, projects and activities" funded by Congress.
Elsewhere, it also stipulates that "none of the funds made available in this Act may be transferred to any department, agency or instrumentality" other than the ones indicated by the appropriations. That would seem to preempt the President Trump regime's efforts to offload Department of Education programs to other parts of the government.
None of that sounds like abolishing the DOE or returning its duties to the states. Indeed, even the attempt to shuffle the department's responsibilities to other parts of the federal government may now be stymied.
In one sense, this is a story about the obvious failure of Republicans in Congress and the President Trump regime to follow through on a major promise made during and after the 2024 election.
It is also an illustration of the power of teachers' unions and other aspects of the educational bureaucratic complex, which were always going to fight to keep taxpayer dollars flowing.
It is a lesson in the importance of making policy through Congress rather than relying on executive orders. President Trump might have scored a temporary victory by signing that executive order in March of last year, but making serious changes in Washington will always require buy-in from lawmakers.
Several bills are floating around Congress that would significantly change or even abolish the Department of Education, but there seems to be limited support for those efforts. Rep. Thomas Massie's (Kent.) bill to terminate the department has 33 cosponsors, while Rep. David Rouzer's (N.C.) States’ Education Reclamation Act has just a dozen cosponsors.
Without greater support in Congress, the effort to abolish the DOE was never very likely to succeed during President Trump's term. Still, the department's bigger budget and the provisions restricting the already-limited efforts at diminishing the department's role are a disappointing reminder of the massive gap between the GOP's campaign trail rhetoric and the reality of what Republicans are delivering.