Florida Governor Ron DeSantis added to his bona fides as the conservative candidate vying for the GOP nomination in 2024 by declaring that he would take steps to wind down the operations of four federal agencies if elected. In an interview on Martha McCallum’s “The Story” on Fox News, McCallum asked, “Are you in favor of eliminating any agencies?” DeSantis responded that he would work with Congress to get rid of the Departments of Education, Commerce, Energy, and the Internal Revenue Service. He followed up by saying that if Congress would not work with him toward that goal, he’d use those agencies to attack many of the policies they are foisting on the American people right now.

Question: Are you in favor of eliminating any agencies?

DeSantis: We would do education, commerce, energy, and the IRS. If Congress won’t go that far, I’m going to use those agencies to push back against woke ideology… pic.twitter.com/cAoZIXfESu

— Acyn (@Acyn) June 28, 2023

This marks the first pledge by any major candidate from either party to eliminate entire federal agencies since Texas Governor Rick Perry’s ill-fated statement in the 2012 primary when he forgot the names of the agencies he was targeting. President Trump pledged to eliminate 19 federal commissions, but they still exist.

While President Trump has adopted the language of the left to set himself apart from Governor DeSantis, in this case touting his status, according to a Reuters investigation, as being the only living president with no links to slavery…

Governor DeSantis has focused his tenure in office on actively combatting the destructive effects of cultural Marxism, such as “Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity” mandates and rabid transgenderism.

His willingness to at least challenge the presumption that most Executive Branch agencies do anything but create well-paid jobs for those fortunate enough to work there is refreshing.

The Department of Commerce is a morass of failure that is, at best, incompetently redundant to the work of other agencies. The Department of Education has succeeded in making a quintessentially local institution, our public schools, into a Petrie dish for Marxist experimentation. The Department of Energy seems to exist solely to block domestic energy production. Those who defend the Department of Energy’s existence based on its role in developing and safeguarding America’s nuclear arsenal ignore that the Department of Energy only assumed this role in 1975.

If anyone wants to defend adding 87,000 new IRS agents, as the agency purchased nearly 5 million rounds of pistol ammunition to collect more money from billionaires, please feel free to do so.

I’d be the first to admit that demolishing one, much less four, federal agencies will be a steep uphill climb. These agencies, as oppressive as they are to individual freedom, have powerful constituencies in Congress and the business community where their power to issue regulations enables established enterprises to hamstring or outright prevent new competitors from emerging…why do you think the major meat-packing companies were the first to demand regulation of slaughterhouses?

Just because something is difficult is not a reason that we should shy away from the challenge. We need candidates who do not run and hide from bold decisions, even decisions that the SmartSet™ calls impossible. As Ronald Reagan said,  the GOP must march under “A banner of bold, unmistakable colors with no pale pastels.” Whether it is taking on the corrupt DIE establishment, the organized sexual grooming of kids in public schools, or oppressive federal agencies, one man has shown he can do it.