Weekly Review
August 20, 2016

August 17:

Around the District: Earlier this month, I shared a few pictures from my visits with Teamphoria and InfiniteTakes for Startup Day Across America, which was an effort to highlight the role of startups and the role of entrepreneurship in the larger economy. In the vein of following up, this article from The Daniel Island News offers a nice snapshot of the visit, and accordingly, I have included it here….

August 18:

Back to School: It’s hard to believe back to school season is already here. And for this reason, maybe it’s a good time to think about the role the federal government plays in education. Indeed, before 1965, the Department of Education didn’t even exist - and yet somehow, NASA still found enough trained engineers to put John Glenn into orbit. 

One of the aspects that’s uniquely unfair about the federal role in education - as opposed to, say, highway construction - is that only about 10 percent of education funding comes from the federal level - while Washington dictates nearly 90 percent of the regulations and oversight for states on education. This is far from what the Founders had intended when they enshrined the principle of federalism into the Tenth Amendment of the Constitution. 

The anger over the Common Core educational standards, and their superseding state efforts is a perfect example of the “Washington bureaucrats know best” mentality that has frustrated many. One solution here would be to block-grant funding back to the states which I voted for last year in the form what was called the ‘A-PLUS’ amendment. It failed, but is something I’ll continue to push for. Continue reading....

National Assessment of Educational Progress vs. K-12 Education Spending

August 19:

Guns and the IRS: What if I told you that there were more non-Defense Department firearm-carrying federal officers than there were Marines? It’s true. There are now 200,000 non-Defense Department officials (who happen to have the power to make arrests), while there are only 182,000 Marines in the U.S. military.

According to this article from The Wall Street Journal, federal agencies - including the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Veterans Affairs - have spent $1.48 billion on the purchase of guns and ammo over the past nine years.

In the case of the IRS alone, the agency has amassed a force of over 2,300 agents, spending almost $5,000 on guns, ammunition, and military-style tactical gear...for each agent.

The fact that the White House can say weapons of war have no places on our streets while concurrently arming “administrative” agencies, such as Health and Human Services and the Food and Drug Administration, seems incredibly inconsistent to me...and also something that doesn’t exactly square with the American value of limited government.

I found the thoughts of Open The Books’ Adam Andrzejewski and former Senator Tom Coburn to be insightful on all this, and I’d recommend that you’d give the article a look.

2016 Fall Internship Program: Each year, our office welcomes a number of college students into the fold, as they join us for our internship program. This gives them a glimpse into the legislative process in Washington while providing them with a way to test the waters of a given field by working on projects related to their interests.

We’re currently accepting applications for fall 2016 internships, which run from early September through early December. Interested students are encouraged to fill out an application. If you have questions, feel free to reach out to Cameron (a former congressional intern) in our DC office at (202) 225-3176. And if you have any neighbors, friends, or family who you think might be interested, I’d ask you to pass the message along.