⚠️ SNARKY DISCLAIMER:

 This rant is brought to you by the ghost of George Carlin, who reminds you that when fascists wrap themselves in flags, they tend to forget the part about funding public education. This one’s for the kids they left behind—and the parents they hung out to dry.

You know what’s really patriotic?

Cutting billions in school funding that Congress already approved.

 Because nothing says “America First” like leaving your nation's children with fewer books, no after-school programs, and a summer filled with jack shit instead of learning.

That’s right, the Trump administration—led by a man who thinks reading is a gateway drug to thinking—just froze nearly $7 billion earmarked for things like after-school programs, English-language instruction, summer learning, and teacher training. You know, the stuff that makes schools… function. Because the FOTUS saw a budget with “migrant education” and “bilingual programming” and said, “Looks suspiciously like helping people. Shut it down.”

Let’s be clear: Congress approved it. The money was obligated.

 States made plans.

 Districts hired staff.

 Kids signed up for programs.

 And then—SURPRISE!—with all the subtlety of a raccoon in a church, the Trump administration dropped the hammer just hours before the July 1 payout deadline, telling states, “Yeah, about that money… we’re thinking it over.”

They called it a “programmatic review.”

 Translation: If we don’t like what the program does (like help brown kids or let teachers mention climate change without being tasered), we’ll stall the money until hell freezes over or DeSantis figures out how to read, whichever comes first.

California? Screwed.

Texas? Screwed.

Every rural district that relies on Title I grants to keep the lights on and the reading levels up? Royally. Screwed.

Hell, even adult literacy programs got shafted, because apparently, being able to read the fine print in a scammy timeshare contract is too woke.

But let’s talk about who else this hurts—the working poor.

You kill after-school programs and what happens?

Parents who are already clinging to jobs by their fingernails now have to leave early, pay more, or roll the dice on their kids being latchkey survivors.

(Remember latchkey kids? Ask Gen X how that turned out—if you can find any who aren’t emotionally welded to their trauma and a VHS copy of The Breakfast Club.)

So now Mom’s got to cut her hours to get home before Jimmy microwaves a Hot Pocket into the void, or she’s scrambling to enroll in private care that costs more than her car payment. And if she does get a spot? She needs to work overtime just to afford it—except her hours got cut because she had to pick up Jimmy. Welcome to the poverty loop. Sponsored by Betsy DeVos’s ghost and the modern Republican Party.

And don’t give me the crap about “fiscal responsibility.”

This isn’t about the budget. This is about ideology—a full-frontal assault on public education wrapped in the flag and soaked in the sweat of angry Boomers yelling “Where’s my America!?” while voting against school lunches.

Let me say this loud for the congressional cowards in the back: Withholding funds Congress appropriated is illegal. It’s called impoundment, and there’s an Act for that. Maybe someone at the Department of Education should try reading it—y’know, if they didn’t just defund literacy.

So what are we left with?

Kids with no programs. Teachers with pink slips. Parents screwed six ways from Sunday. And a government willing to torch an entire generation’s future because DEI made them cry.

This isn’t incompetence.

This is deliberate cruelty masquerading as policy.

And the next time they pose in front of a chalkboard for a photo op, I hope it’s got “YOU FAILED US” scrawled in big red crayon across it. Because they did.