Bill Moyers:
In part two of his series, "100 days of Deconstruction," Stephen Harper dives into the deep cuts at federal agencies designed to improve people's lives
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Harper looks at what the secretary of education, Betsy DeVos, the secretary of health and human services, Tom Price, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions have been up to during Trump’s first 100 days.
In part one, Harper examines the records of Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt and Secretary of Energy Rick Perry.
Here’s a snippet of Harper’s essay:
Beware of the enemy within. With respect to the US government, the ultimate inside job is well underway. Through key Cabinet appointments, Trump is gutting federal agencies that have improved citizens’ daily lives in ways that most Americans will no longer take for granted.
Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos
In her confirmation hearing, billionaire Betsy DeVos made the world painfully aware that she isn’t an educator or expert in curriculum. She’s not familiar with the decades-old Individuals with Disabilities Act, or the fraudulent for-profit colleges and graduate schools that exploit their students. She seems unconcerned about the funding crisis that confronts public education in America. But she has all of the credentials required to serve in the Trump administration: She’s a billionaire with a mission to destroy the federal department she now heads.
Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price
Tom Price is an orthopedic surgeon who seems to have forgotten his profession’s seminal creed, “First, do no harm.” As a Georgia congressman, Price was among the most prominent critics of Obamacare, which has provided more than 20 million citizens with health insurance that they otherwise would not have. As the Secretary of Health and Human Services, he is now working to dismantle the Affordable Care Act.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions
Jeff Sessions is just the person to send the federal agency charged with the pursuit of justice on a one-way ride back to a time of unspeakable injustice. In 1985 he led the prosecution of three African-American voter rights activists for voter fraud. As the US attorney for the southern district of Alabama, Sessions lost that case. Ruling that his theory was contrary to election law and the Constitution, the judge threw out many of the counts and a jury acquitted the defendants of everything else. A year later, even the Republican-controlled Senate considered Sessions too racist to become a federal judge after President Reagan nominated him.
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| Photo by Shawn Thew-Pool/Getty Images |
By Steven Harper
