PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania — Presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy highlighted his plan to raze the administrative state, promising to begin with the "head of the snake" — Department of Education — during his address to the Moms for Liberty summit.

"I will not just reform at that administrative state; that's in many ways a false promise," he told a room of mothers representing 40 states. "We will shut it down, starting with agencies that should not exist, like the U.S. Department of Education. We will shut it down."

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Ramaswamy, 37, used his speech at the summit to outline his vision for the presidency, as the Ohio businessman looks to boost his popularity in the Republican field. After his speech, he was joined by his wife, Apoorva, and their two young sons for a panel discussion with Moms for Liberty co-founder Tiffany Justice.

Ramaswamy detailed how he would shut down the agency at which Republicans have been aiming for years, saying the "No. 1 obstacle that they give you is civil service protections."

Using the 1977 Presidential Reorganization Act, Ramaswamy said the president has the authority to shut it down if doing so would promote the economy.

"I believe an $80 billion saving back to the taxpayer is promoting the economy," he said. "I will act on that authority to shut it down."

Ramaswamy said that money can be directed to underfunded school choice programs across the country, but added that if those programs want to receive the money, states would be required to write teacher contracts so that they cannot join teachers unions.

"Now the public schools are actually competing with the private schools," he said. "We have true competition and choice."

Along with federal plans for the money, the presidential hopeful looked at the way local school districts spend money, such as enormous per-student expenditures in places like Chicago that still produce poor educational results.

He explained how Chicago spends $40,000 per student on average, but that charter schools in the area are "delivering double the educational achievement spending half of that money."

Ramaswamy's education proposals are part of a broader "vision of human identity," which returns culture to one family-oriented.

He said in order to combat social advances by the Left, conservatives must "offer our own vision: If they feed our kids race, gender, sexuality, and climate, I want us to start talking more about the individual, the family, the nation, and yes, God."

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"God is real, there are two genders, fossil fuels are a requirement for human prosperity, an open border is not a border, reverse racism is racism, parents determine the education of their children, the nuclear family is the best-known form of governance to mankind, capitalism is the best system known to man to lift people up from poverty, here are three branches of government, not four, and the U.S. Constitution is the strongest guarantor of freedom in human history," he said, listing tenets of his vision for the country. "That is the truth."

Several other presidential candidates spoke at the summit this weekend, including former President Donald Trump, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson.