Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Wednesday he will close four key federal agencies if he is elected president in 2024 in an effort to reduce the role of government in Americans’ lives.
Speaking to Fox News’ Martha MacCallum, DeSantis was asked whether he favored closing any agencies.
“We would do Education, we would do Commerce, we’d do Energy, and we would do IRS,” he said.
“If Congress will work with me on doing that, we’ll be able to reduce the size and scope of government,” DeSantis added. “If Congress won’t go that far, I’m going to use those agencies to push back against woke ideology and against the leftism that we see creeping into all institutions of American life.”
DeSantis’ campaign did not respond to a request for comment about further details about his remarks.
The Florida governor has been attempting to separate himself from former president Donald Trump, who is currently the Republican front-runner, by moving to the far right on a variety of issues. Trump has not said he would eliminate the education department if he takes back the White House but he has proposed eliminating federal funding for “any school or program pushing critical race theory, gender ideology or other inappropriate racial, sexual or political content onto our children.”
“We need to fundamentally re-constitutionalize the government,” DeSantis said Wednesday. “We talked about draining the swamp in 2016; that didn’t happen. I think the better analogy is breaking the swamp.”
Last month, DeSantis called the IRS a “corrupt organization” during an interview with conservative radio host Dana Loesch, who asked him if he would sign legislation that would eliminate the federal agency.
“The answer is yes,” DeSantis said at the time. “We need something totally different.”
“I would be welcoming to take this tax system, chuck it out the window and do something that’s more favorable to the average folks,” he continued.
The IRS, which is overseen by the Treasury Department, has gone through several budget cuts over the last several years. The agency has cut over 20 percent of its staff since 2010 and the recently signed Bipartisan Debt Ceiling Bill eliminated $1.4 billion in IRS funding while redirecting around $20 billion of the $80 billion provided to the agency to nondefense funds.
