On the same day that Betsy DeVos spoke to her staff as the new head of the United States Department of Education , a member of Congress from Kentucky who spent years living off the grid with his family and is a favorite of the Tea Party has introduced a bill to eliminate the department altogether. H.R. 899 , introduced by U.S. Congressman Thomas Massie , is a single sentence long: “The Department of Education shall terminate on December 31, 2018.”