Democratic senators tried their best to rattle Betsy DeVos at her confirmation hearing to be Education Secretary on Tuesday, but she glided serenely through the process. “Nothing in life is truly free,” she sweetly said to Bernie Sanders (I-VT) when the former Democratic presidential candidate brought up his proposal to make public colleges “tuition free.”
Like President-Elect Donald Trump who nominated her, DeVos said at the hearing that she would take only $1 in salary. Cabinet members earn $205,700. FORBES estimates that DeVos and her husband, Dick, stand to inherit $1.25 billion from his father, who co-founded Amway. She also comes from a wealthy Michigan family.
The Democratic senators, who each spent time decrying the five-minute limit on questioning, stayed away from hot topics such as Common Core curriculum standards, standardized testing and transgender bathrooms. Instead, they focused on her record of charitable giving (considerable), her tax returns (not required) and conversion therapy for gays (she never supported it).
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Retired Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) introduced DeVos, whom he knows from his position as a board member of the American Federation for Children, a pro-school-choice organization that she chaired until her nomination. He called her a “purpose-driven team builder.”
DeVos, 59, a mother of four and grandmother of five, described her education at Christian schools in western Michigan and at Calvin College in Grand Rapids. She said parents and students need schools with “rigor, challenges and a safe environment.” Taking a bit of a swipe at high-income parents in top-performing districts who eschew the concept of school choice, she said, “Even our best schools don’t work for all.”
Part of the whip-saw effect throughout the nearly three and a half hours of testimony and bickering among the members developed as some cast her as out-of-touch because of her wealth and some cast her as too much of an insider because of her wealth.
Sanders started out his questioning by musing that “many in this country” are worried that the US is devolving into an oligarchy…an economy run by a cadre of the uber wealthy. He asked her if she would be sitting in that seat taking questions if she hadn’t donated hundreds of millions to Republican candidates. She didn’t take the political bait and instead replied that through her work she had been a “voice” for parents and students who wanted and needed a choice of schools.
For her part, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), a former Harvard law professor, sharply questioned DeVos’ ability to handle the federal student loan program. “Do you have any direct experience running a bank? Have you ever managed or overseen a trillion-dollar loan program?”
[Source:-Forbes]
