Burgum says moving federal agencies' headquarters outside of DC would be a priority as president

GOP presidential candidate and current North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum said that a major priority for him if he were to become president is to move federal agencies outside of the District of Columbia. 

"If you were a company, you would not consolidate," he told Just the News during the 2024 election town hall interview series sponsored by the Association of Mature American Citizens (AMAC) and televised nationwide on the Real America’s Voice network.  

Currently, major federal agencies including the Department of Education, the Department of Energy and the Department of Agriculture are all primarily located in Washington, D.C., although each of those departments has field offices across the U.S.

"You wouldn't have all your team members working at corporate headquarters. You'd get them out to where your customers are," he added. "I mean, that makes sense. So part of this is returning the power to the states and returning the power to the people and to shrink the size of the federal government."

Before jumping into politics, Burgum was most well known for being the cofounder of "Arthur Ventures," a company that leads investments in B2B software companies in the U.S. and Canada. 

Some of the federal agencies he mentioned moving the headquarters out of D.C. included the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Energy.

"The Department of Energy is based in D.C.," Burgum said. "Anybody producing energy here? I don't think so. Maybe that should be relocated to Texas."

He also suggested that perhaps the Department of Agriculture should be moved to Iowa.

According to Burgum, this would also remove inefficiency in parts of the government. 

"This would take out that waste that's in every single job," he said. "In every single agency, you could get rid of 20% of the federal employees and not miss a beat just by redesigning the work because that's what industries have to do."

A major topic that has been making mainstream news is education and parental rights. Burgum said that education should be handled most at the state level and the Department of Education shouldn't exist. 

"I agree with Ronald Reagan on a lot of things," he stated. "He was the first President to say, 'let's get rid of the Department of Education.' That was when he was running in 1980. I mean, let's get this thing done." Reagan made the proposal in his 1982 "State of the Union" speech.

"That's not a charter in the federal government for them to be running education," Burgum added. "Education is state and local, and we could drive that money."