Betsy DeVos Is Taking Nearly $8 Million from Dept of Education To Pay for Her Own Security

The Trump entitlement train is full. So full.

Don't Miss Sarah Jones's Essay On Kristi Noem Titled Predatory Is The Point On The Daily.

The Republican Party that was so concerned about the “budget” that they had to shut down the government now has a president who thinks nothing of spending millions on extra security for themselves.

Teachers will not be pleased to know that for Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ attack on education doesn’t stop at her policies and defunding of the “Department of Education”. Oh, no.

They’re going full Trump with the budget, so DeVos is going to take an additional almost $8 million dollars over eight months for her own security away from the Department of Education, which was already underfunded and as the Trump administration is proposing cutting the budget by $9 billion dollars.

This comes after she had to go through some protesters to enter a D.C. school . Protesters because she is not fit for her job, and stands for anti-public school education and/or education-for-the-rich only.

“Federal marshals are protecting Education Secretary Betsy DeVos at a cost to her agency of nearly $8 million over nearly eight months, according to the U.S. Marshals Service,” the Washington Post reported.

The Department of Education has agreed to reimburse the U.S. Marshals $7.78 million to protect Devos from mid-February to the end of September, according to the Washington Post report.

So concerned about the budget is the Trump administration, that “members of the in-house security team that guarded previous secretaries remain on the payroll. But they are not guarding DeVos and have not been assigned new duties.”

Oh. How fiscally conservative of them.

Where is the money for the U.S. Marshals coming from? The Department of Education, of course. And is this normal? No, it’s not.

CNN reported in February that DeVos was getting extra protection, which “comes after DeVos’ contentious confirmation fight and an encounter with protestors at Jefferson Middle School Academy in southwest Washington earlier this month. One protester blocked the school door DeVos was planning to use and another was arrested and charged with assaulting an officer.”

One protester blocked the school door. There might be worse threats, but this increase in security was announced right after the school incident and no confirmation of exceptional threats has been made.

This isn’t typical for the U.S. Marshals – it’s the first time a cabinet level position has been protected by the agency since it protected the director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, which ceased being a cabinet level position in 2009.

This is how the Trump administration does things. After all, Trump is likely taking money away from exploited kids to pay for extra security needs. The Office of Budget and Management rejected the Secret Service’s request asking for an additional $60 million in the budget to pay for Trump travel and protection, including protecting Trump Tower. That money will have to come from somewhere, so it will likely pull from the other responsibilities of the SS, one of which is helping exploited children.

So, the party of “family values” is now the party against education for all but the wealthy and while maybe not against helping exploited children (although a case can be made for this based on their positions on several issues having to do with protecting children), it’s not a priority. The President’s desire to take weekly vacations and his wife’s desire not to leave her home come before the safety of the rest of American children and protecting DeVos from the people who are protesting her is more important than offering a free and good education to all of our children.

No one is suggesting that these folks shouldn’t be protected. They should be. All public positions like this come with an increase in threats. And there are experts in place to deal with those threats and the budget for them. The issue is the demand for millions more in security and the entitlement that takes from average Americans to pay for these extra demands.

It’s the entitlement that, for example, the Trump administration feels perfectly fine demanding more money after taking such extremist positions that DeVos is hated by Republicans and Democrats alike. Another example is that because Trump wants to vacation constantly and his wife doesn’t want to live in D.C., money is probably being taken from exploited children (it’s coming from somewhere).

The attitude is one of such exceptional entitlement, it’s difficult to articulate.

They are proposing cutting the Department of Education by billions of dollars, but there is an average of $1 million a month to protect DeVos.

Sarah Jones

Listen to Sarah on the PoliticusUSA Pod on The Daily newsletter podcast here.

Sarah has been credentialed to cover President Barack Obama, then VP Joe Biden, 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and exclusively interviewed Speaker Nancy Pelosi multiple times and exclusively covered her first home appearance after the first impeachment of then President Donald Trump.

Sarah is two-time Telly award winning video producer and a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.

Connect with Sarah on Post,  Mastodon @PoliticusSarah@Journa.Host, & Twitter.