As the GOP presidential primary has progressed, and candidates have revealed their true, right-wing colors, we’ve come to see just how extreme the Republican Party and its candidates have become.
Once mistaken for a “moderate,” Chris Christie has proven himself to be as much a right-wing conservative as anyone else in the GOP field — even next to the likes of Ted Cruz and Donald Trump.
Here’s his latest: At a Monday town hall, Christie expressed an openness to abolishing the Department of Education:
“I would not be in favor of the Department of Education conducting itself the way it is now…As far as the elimination of those departments, everything would be on the table, as far as I’m concerned.”
Christie’s not alone in his far-right views on education. Here’s where the rest of the GOP field stands on eliminating — or severely cutting — the Department of Education:
- Ted Cruz has said the Department of Education “should be abolished,” and he’s promised to eliminate it, if elected.
- Marco Rubio’s said “I honestly think we don’t need a Department of Education.”
- John Kasich‘s been inconsistent on the Department of Education, and gone back and forth on whether or not he’d eliminate it. Here’s what he’s said definitively: “If I were king in America, I’d abolish all teachers’ lounges.”
- Ben Carson wouldn’t eliminate the Department of Education, per se, but he’d, uh, “change the function of the Department of Education” to “monitor institutions of higher education for political bias.” So there’s that.
- Donald Trump has on several occasions said that he would cut funding for the Department of Education.
- Jeb Bush, a voice of relative moderation wouldn’t eliminate it, but his “reform” proposal would nonetheless slash “the federal Education Department by 50 percent.”
Published: Jan 26, 2016