The fight against a woke and weaponized federal government has begun, though it remains in its early stages. Wokeness in the federal government is best understood as a method of decision-making by activist bureaucrats. They determine how taxpayer money gets spent, who benefits, who loses, and which social-justice cause gets prioritized in government programming. Dismantling their taxpayer-funded supply lines is a critical element in defeating their efforts.
How to do this? For starters, Congress should continue to reduce nondefense discretionary spending and budget authority to pre-Covid levels—not just to curb inflation and bend the curve of the national debt but to reduce the power of the federal agencies and departments that have pursued agendas that stoke racial division.
A key component in the next budget fight should be ending competitive grant programs, most of which fund far-left organizations that use public money to advance their causes. The Appropriations Committee should turn off the competitive grant spigot altogether, or, at a minimum, include legislative and limitation riders that prohibit such funding from promoting divisive racialist theories.
The Rules Committee, meantime, should adopt new standards as part of the budget and appropriations process to forbid floor amendments that fund programs, agencies, or nongovernmental entities practicing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). In tandem, lawmakers should consider more aggressive use of the Holman Rule, which lets House members cut specific programs and fire specific employees. This tool can be deployed to defund DEI departments and hold activist bureaucrats accountable to Congress.
Lastly, every House committee chairman should hold hearings that scrutinize the woke bureaucracies under their respective purviews. These congressional efforts will help build a public case against DEI and lay the groundwork for executive actions in a new administration.
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