'Pull that plug': GOP congressman says it's time to abolish Department of Education, OSHA

Arizona GOP Rep. Andy Biggs, chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, says the federal government should phase out the U.S. Department of Education and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)

In an interview with Just the News, Biggs pointed to the record deficit and $30+ trillion national debt as the reason to shrink the size and scope of the federal government, adding that both the Democrats and the GOP are spending too much..

Arguing "there's no constitutional authority" for the Department of Education "and everything that it was designed to accomplish," he said that "now's the time, you can pull that plug."

Now is also the time to eliminate OSHA, Biggs said, providing an example from his home state.

"You have to have safety measures," he acknowledged. "Well, Arizona's safety measures were more stringent and protected more and better than the federal standards. OSHA sued Arizona, said, 'No, you've got to implement our standards.' Well, we said, 'Look, ours are better.' Doesn't matter. They want you to implement their standards. It's time to remove OSHA out of the picture. So that's one way to start ratcheting down."

Describing "the bureaucracy" as "the fourth branch of government," Biggs said defunding those agencies in federal budget bills is one way to shrink the bureaucracy.

Biggs was asked if the GOP should have taken more time to study the long-term ramifications of the $2.2 trillion CARES Act, which established many of the pandemic-era relief programs that President Biden continued in his $2 trillion American Rescue Plan Act last March.

Biggs noted that he objected to the decision to pass the CARES Act in the House in March of 2020 by a voice vote rather than a recorded vote. It ultimately passed with a voice vote.

"You're going to have fraud. Why are you going to have fraud? Because there's no accountability built into that program," Biggs said, referring to the billions of dollars in fraud resulting from the federal pandemic unemployment assistance program and Paycheck Protection Program.

The latest estimates show pandemic unemployment fraud at about $80 billion and PPP fraud at approximately $76 billion.

Runaway spending is driving inflation, Biggs noted.

"Why do prices go up?" he asked. "Because currency is devalued."

His own party is part of the problem, he admitted.

"Republicans have a spending problem," he said. "They all like spending too much." 

According to the Committee for a Responsible Budget and the Congressional Budget Office, the U.S. debt will exceed 200% of the size of the economy by 2051. Biggs said Republicans have to be willing to reduce the federal budget and explain their decisions to their constituents without fear of electoral consequences.

"It requires some hard choices, tough decisions, and you do it on the records people see," he said. "I think if we get sucked into this monetary theory garbage we will be in real trouble. I mean, I look at Greece. They were like 118% debt to GDP ratio. Ours is probably somewhere in that neighborhood, maybe a little bit higher."