Why Do Some Departments Merge Responsibilities?

The topic of discussion for this Constitution Monday concerns departments in the federal government, particularly the Department of Education. On the day that Linda McMahon was sworn in as Secretary of Education, President Donald Trump told her that he hoped that she would work herself out of a job, and she is doing as he asked.

According to Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell at The Daily Signal, McMahon has transferred Department of Education responsibilities to the Labor Department, and the two departments are merging certain tasks.

Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer said she expects to see success from the Labor Department taking on the responsibilities of the Education Department.

The Department of Education and the Labor Department integrated the federal government’s education and workforce portfolio. The change positioned the Labor Department as the headquarters for all federal workforce programs and executed the two agencies’ joint workforce development agreement.

The Education Department also transferred the office of elementary and secondary education, as well as the postsecondary education office, to the Labor Department….

Chavez-DeRemer said she is able to use her connections from her time in Congress in her position at Labor….

Secretary of Education Linda McMahon previously told The Daily Signal she is talking to “dozens” of Congress members about codifying her plan to move certain Education Department functions to other agencies.

Chavez-DeRemer is working with McMahon by taking on some Department of Education employees and grant dollars, she said….

“We’re not forgetting about the perspective workforce and the education we’re addressing, that education is our future workforce,” the labor secretary said.

“It’s a great coalition between Department of Education and the Department of Labor,” she said. “And I don’t think it should be a surprise to anybody that recognizing that they are our future workforce, and they deserve those dollars in their hands.”

According to this site, the cabinet of President George Washington had four departments: State (1789; originally Foreign Affairs), Treasury (1789); War (1789; later Defense and now War), and Justice (1789; originally Office of Attorney General. 

The Cabinet gained and lost positions: Navy (1798/John Adams; merged into Defense in 1947); Post Office (1792/Washington; later removed from Cabinet level in 1972); Interior (1849/Taylor); Agriculture (1862/Cleveland); Commerce and Labor (1903/T. Roosevelt; later divided into two departments: commerce and labor in 1913/Wilson); Health, Education and Welfare (1953/Eisenhower; later split into Health and Human Services and Education in 1979/Carter); Housing and Urban Development (1965/Johnson); Transportation (1966/Johnson); Energy (1977/Carter); Veterans Affairs (1988/G.H.W. Bush), and Homeland Security (2002/G.W. Bush).

As can be seen from the above paragraph, Cabinet positions have been added, merged, and subtracted over the history of the United States. I see the moving of responsibilities from one department to another as one viable way to decrease the size of the federal government. If the Department of Education remains on the federal level, it sounds to me like it will be a bare bones operation.