By attacking the Department of Education and the United States Agency for International Development, President Trump and special government employee Elon Musk are simply hitting fungos at spring training — like a crack baseball team, anxiously awaiting the first pitch of the season. Their batting practice will be quite useful in taking on the Pentagon.

The value added by the Department of Education has been questioned for decades, certainly since the Reagan Administration.  At issue is whether its responsibilities would be better executed by the states, with parents and teachers having a greater say than unelected bureaucrats.
Further, the U.S industrial base is far from where it should be to sustain a major high intensity conflict.
The Department of Education also carries with it a perceived woke culture, sponsoring programs that enhance diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) — a concept viewed by any and discriminatory and now being eliminated in government, academia, and corporate America. The Department of Education is the smallest cabinet level department, with 4,100 employees and a FY 2024 budget of about $270 billion representing four percent of the federal budget.
USAID is much smaller, with FY 2023 annual appropriations of over $40 billion, with a work force of more than 10,000 in dozens of countries. The issue with USAID is that it resembles a parallel Department of State, not consistently aligned with U.S. foreign policy objectives. Recently confirmed Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said that USAID has committed insubordination and is not responsive or cooperative, thinking it works for the world and not the for the U.S. Rubio envisions appropriate programs continuing, but under the aegis of the Department of State.
The Department of Education and USAID are easy to pick on. Trump and Musk are warming up for a much bigger target: the Department of Defense. Rightsizing the Pentagon and improving its efficiency would be the dream of leading consultancy fi...