Tea Party to "get rid of" the Department of Education.

During a teletown hall Thursday evening hosted by Rep. Ted Yoho, a caller named Frank from Gainesville asked about furloughed workers.

"The people that had to work should be paid," Frank said. "But the people that are home watching Netflix and whatever, I'm not sure that we should be sending them checks."

Replied Yoho: "Well, when we voted on that they were supposed to come back to work as part of that deal. ... I agree 100 percent with you. If they're not working, they shouldn't get paid."

He also said he's working on legislation to "get rid of" the Department of Education.

Source.

eh.. tea party congresspeople represent something like 4-5% of the total us population. i think it's time people start treating them that way..

Well, the Department of Education certainly didn't help these people out, now did they?

I can see why they have such resent for a system that failed them so miserably.

Damn these tea party members are stupid. Now if only we could get moderate republicans to stop letting them lead the party.

I think it's time

*puts on shades*

that he gets schooled.

YEAAAAHHHHHHHH!

I think you guys overvalue the Department of Education. The US has a highly decentralized education system. The Department of Education is a not a required expense for this reason. They simply don't do much.

@DaBrainz: If anything they probably make things worse.

Yup.

Republican party is just garbage right now.

There's a reason they're called "cons"

So, he claims they voted to send everyone back to work so they can start getting paid again. . . How is that any different whatsoever form just voting to open the government back up?

There are problems with education in this country, so lets just abandon it all together. Great idea.

This seems like an intelligent means of improving the job market.

Top lol.

It makes me resent the fact that a bunch of the people in my area are Tea Party members, or so they say. What good can come out of getting rid of this Department?

I really hope their plan is to just move the programs instead of getting rid of them altogether. That would save them SOME credibility.

His response leaves only three possibilities: He's an imbecile, he legislates with careless disregard, or he's dishonest (and pandering to the crowd that's immediately in front of him).

Regardless of which is actually the case, I don't think we should give his statements much credence.

It's a mystery to me how anyone can even let it cross their mind to vote for the Tea Party.

Republicans have been talking about getting rid of the DoE since the 1980's............

I think with the whole shutdown debacle, establishment republicans are starting to tighten the reigns on them.

It seems the tea party wants to get rid of all aspects of government.

Is it really doing all that well to begin with? I'm not saying it's not crazy but perhaps some of you put way too much faith into our existing system when it's proven to be subpar in almost every way compared to other countries.

I'd like to believe that, but the government is still shutdown despite the fact that enough republicans have said they would vote with democrats to reopen it.

Sure but the right cause of action would be to reform the current system OR find a better alternative. These guys have neither in mind lol.

Yes, because other reforms in other ailing parts of our system have done so well. I don't think they have nothing in mind. I think they simply don't believe government is capable of fixing the problem. At least not this type of government.

The Tea Party is just a rebranding of the far right GOP after the shame HW Bush brought tot he name, they still support all the same shit as they always have. They still want no government and no taxes, and they want everybody to suffer to get that.

They want to get rid of it so their is no standards on what to teach. It's the best way to slip in anti-science garbage and promote religion in schools, as well as teaching their own heavily revised version of history. (google "war of northern oppression") I'll be interested to see if the Tea Party costs Mitch McConnel the majority leader position in the Senate yet again this go round.

That's not an argument against trying to reform the system.

Unless they actually provide an alternative to the Department of Education, why give them the benefit of the doubt? Especially considering how hilariously inept the GOP currently is.

Do you have a better idea?

Yes it is if their plan is to do something else.

If I recall correctly the common alternative is to shift the burdens to the state departments. So to say they have no alternative is purposefully misleading. You mean how hilariously inept every party is. Because I haven't seen any strokes of genius from the Democrats, either. In fact, to repeatedly support something that has proven to be broken is the very definition of insanity. And, as I also recall, the main reason you hate the GOP and believe they're inept is because you think they're insane.

No alternative, maybe an alternative, none of that matters until they actually outline what they hope to do. Hence why giving them the benefit of the doubt without an actual plan is stupid and I'd have said this for the Democrats, too. You know that I live in Canada and the Democrats are still pretty right-wing compared to the parties here so don't pretend I'm any sort of fan of them either bro.

Yeah they're inept because they're insane. The Democrats are inept because they're spineless and have nothing resembling a vision. The GOP at least knows what it wants so they do get some points for that despite what they want being utter insanity in my eyes lol.

Because states will do well being in complete control of their education.

Inb4 creationism, global warming is fake etc...

Well, considering what we get when plans are outlined(Obamacare)I'm not too concerned.

I read the other day that Congressmen are exempt from being forced into using Obamacare. LOL wtf is the rationale behind that

Well it makes sense that uneducated fvcktards would want to get rid of the Department of Education.

Tea Party, not the GOP as a whole.

I think they want education to be state run and not have a federal component.

Before Jimmy Carter created the Department Of Education, the US was number one in the world, in educational achievement.

Since the Department Of Education was created, we've dropped to 17th.

That says it all.

I'd prefer we get rid of the tea party

No it doesn't. Not even close

I don't know about this statistic about US' education ranking in the world, but our education in US is declining. This is not a funny material, less education can cause to our national security risk to increase.

Cite:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesmarshallcrotty/2012/03/26/7-signs-that-americas-educational-decline-is-jeopardizing-its-national-security/

Because if one thing happens after the other that means the one caused the other!

I recommend looking up the word correlation in the dictionary.

Also, the tea party is full of absolute nutjobs and it seriously frightens me that they have any sort of support and power in the government. The GOP in general sucks right now, but the tea party is BY FAR the worst part of the GOP and the few Republicans with a brain that are in power right now really need to control those psychos. Also, people need to stop voting psychos into power.

Lol

Instead of getting rid of it they should start actually putting more money into it, instead of constantly cutting funding and expecting better results....

That guy is probably advocating this because he was bullied in school for his hilarious surname. :P

The Tea Party (what, 80 people?) are ruining this country. Impeding it's growth, at the very least.

The tea party is not that big an issue. It's the more general partisan bullshit that occurs everywhere

@lostrib: This whole "winning'' attitude is the issue; politics over policy. The Tea Party the biggest offender of this I think.

I don't think the Tea Party are ruining the country, but I wouldn't say they aren't a big issue either. Their influence on the Republican Party has been a pretty large factor in the current government dysfunction. The government has always been fraught with partisan bullshit, but what's happening now is more than that.

Strong centralized school standards are a staple of pretty much every other western nation on this planet. If anything we need to strengthen and reform it. The answer isn't to rid our country of it and hand it over to the states. There would too much of a disparity between states, although we can pretty much say that right now. Just look at the education standards and text book updates in Texas, or in the case of some other southern states they have trouble adopting basic science measures (Evolution, Global warming etc).

The other option they love to do is simply give out vouchers for privates school, which again runs into the same problem as the government subsidizes private school curriculums that borderline on hilarity.

If we get rid of the DOE its going to exacerbate a problem that we're already dealing with, that being huge funding disparities correlating to school districts of different socioeconomic leanings. But he's Tea Party, so it probably best to ignore him.

Of course want to, it'll get them more votes.