He would remain in the House until 1989. Eleven years.
The Vietnam War ended with the fall of Saigon in 1975.
As a Congressman he would hold several prestigious positions, Chairman of the House Republican Conference and House Minority Whip.
Cheney would oppose the Department of Education as a unnecessary budget deficit. He also viewed it as expansion of the federal government. How convenient, if one wants to eliminate the Department of Education from the national budget I guess it would be viewed as a federal impingement on liberty. What Richard Cheney never appreciated was the fact the Department of Education grew out of the federal concern for national security and the space race within the Cold War.
...World War II led to a significant expansion of Federal support for education. (click here) The Lanham Act in 1941 and the Impact Aid laws of 1950 eased the burden on communities affected by the presence of military and other Federal installations by making payments to school districts. And in 1944, the "GI Bill" authorized postsecondary education assistance that would ultimately send nearly 8 million World War II veterans to college.
The Cold War stimulated the first example of comprehensive Federal education legislation, when in 1958 Congress passed the National Defense Education Act (NDEA) in response to the Soviet launch of Sputnik. To help ensure that highly trained individuals would be available to help America compete with the Soviet Union in scientific and technical fields, the NDEA included support for loans to college students, the improvement of science, mathematics, and foreign language instruction in elementary and secondary schools, graduate fellowships, foreign language and area studies, and vocational-technical training.
The anti-poverty and civil rights laws of the 1960s and 1970s brought about a dramatic emergence of the Department's equal access mission. The passage of laws such as Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 which prohibited discrimination based on race, sex, and disability, respectively made civil rights enforcement a fundamental and long-lasting focus of the Department of Education....
The Department of Education would become a Cabinet Level position in 1980.
Cheney would also oppose Head Start until he was running as Vice President in 2000. Then it was okay, at least until he was elected.
So, when entering the office of the Vice President in 2001 where does he see the spending of the USA in most need, the Defense Department, providing Nascar competition to the branches of the military while recruiting children in all levels of THEIR EDUCATION.
Plenty of money for war, but, none for education. Right.
