Attorney General Jeff Jackson Sues Trump Administration Again
Today, North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson (D) and Superintendent of Public Instruction Mo Green (D) announced a lawsuit against the Trump administration. The Trump Administration said the funds in question were frozen as the Administration reviews them, after reports of funds being misused to “subsidize a radical leftwing agenda.” Jackson is most famous for using his seat in Congress to build his following on TikTok despite the clear national security risks.
The total amount of funding currently frozen nationally is about $6.8 billion, and North Carolina’s funding amount is about $165 million. For context, North Carolina public schools received $12.6 billion in state aid and $1.1 billion in federal funding. This is about ten percent of the total federal funding, and about 1.2% of the total amount of federal and state funding for education in North Carolina. This analysis of financing does not include the local support that public schools receive
Instead of working with the Trump administration to demonstrate and clarify that all federal funds are being spent appropriately instead of on leftwing propaganda programs, Jackson and Green filed a lawsuit, along with other liberal activists in California and New York, seeking a preliminary injunction. Mo Green acknowledged that there were stopgap measures in place to mitigate any impact of this funding issue. Green then went on to threaten massive classroom reductions over the 1.2% reduction in funding. Attorney General Jackson warned, without evidence, that over a 1,000 teachers could be laid off.
Tim’s Take: North Carolinians are smart enough to understand that school districts can figure out a temporary freeze of 1.2% of their funding, while the Trump administration works to ensure grant funding is aligned with Congressional intent and not pushing a radical left-wing agenda. But Jackson and Green want to take a page out of Obama’s playbook and make any federal spending decision as painful as possible. Back in 2013, President Obama deliberately made the government shutdowns more painful for Americans to increase political pressure on Congressional Republicans. That’s what Democrats like Jackson and Green are doing now, by threatening massive cuts over a temporary funding dispute with the federal government that amounts to a small amount of the total funding for North Carolina’s public schools. Once again, Democrats’ political games with public schools reveal that more families than ever are making a different choice for their families.
