President Donald Trump defended his administration’s education spending policies in a post made to his Twitter account on Thursday afternoon. In the tweet, Trump condemned “Fake News” reports that the Department of Education — led by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos — was planning to close “hundreds” of rural schools.
In the tweet, Trump also went on to claim that his administration was “investing greatly in our schools, and always will!” But in the new Department of Education budget he and DeVos have put forth for the upcoming fiscal year, Trump proposes slashing funding for schools by a whopping 20 percent, according to an analysis by the Center for American Progress think tank.
The budget slashes education funding for the fourth consecutive year and would cut overall spending on the Education Department by $5.6 billion, or about 8 percent, according to the CAP analysis. Trump’s budget also moves 29 spending programs for K-12 education and schools into a single “block grant” program and then cuts the total funding allocated for those programs by 20 percent, or $4.7 billion, in the new grant program.
At the same time Trump proposes drastic cuts to spending on public schools, his budget would create $5 billion in tax credits for families that send their children to private schools, according to a Washington Post report.
The education cuts follow Trump’s budget proposals to cut other taxpayer-funded programs. In his latest budget proposal, as The Inquisitr reported, Trump has proposed a staggering $2 trillion worth of cuts to social “safety net” programs, including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — better know as “food stamps” — as well as popular health care programs such as Medicare and Medicaid.
Though in his Thursday tweet, Trump said that reports his administration planned to close rural schools were “fake news,” in fact, DeVos had planned a rules change that would have drastically reduced funding for often-underfunded rural schools. But the reaction to the proposal in Congress from both Democrats and Republicans was overwhelmingly negative, causing DeVos to reverse the rules change, according to a New York Times report.
Even Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell signed a letter to DeVos warning that the funding cuts would “force many rural school districts to forgo essential activities and services,” according to the Times report. The letter was signed by 21 senators, including 13 Republicans and eight Democrats.
Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins said that her state would see more than 100 schools lose a total of $1.2 million in funds if the change went through, according to The Times .
