Abolish the Department of Education.

Control the Panama Canal.

Defang the mullahs of Iran.

Do those issues sound familiar?

I’m not talking about what’s on Donald Trump’s “to disrupt” list today.

I’m talking about issues my father had to confront in 1980 when he was running for president against Jimmy Carter.

It’s hard to believe, but 44 years later we’re still having problems with the same things – the security of the Panama Canal, the wasteful U.S. education department and the threat of a radicalized and militarily dangerous Iran.

Ronald Reagan did a pretty good job when it came to defeating the Soviet Empire and ending the Cold War.

But he couldn’t reverse the three “gifts” that Carter and his administration left for him when he took office.

My father tried to keep his campaign promise to shut down Carter’s baby, the Department of Education, when it was still in its crib.

He cut its budget and its duties, and in his 1982 State of the Union Address he repeated his promise to dismantle it, but the Democrats running Congress thwarted him.

The argument he and Republicans made – that education is a matter for state and local people to handle – is as sound as it ever was.

But the Republican Party gradually lost interest in getting rid of the education department and the goal was dropped entirely by George W. Bush’s administration.

Today it employs about 4,000 bureaucrats, has an annual budget of $79 billion and spends most of its time handing out “free” federal bucks to schools and universities and managing student loan and student-aid programs.

Needless to say, like every federal agency you can name, it does a lousy job.

Yet, despite its record of failure, the Department of Education is treated like a sacred, essential and permanent fixture of the federal government.

When Trump threatens to issue an executive order to abolish it, Democrats, the liberal media and the education industrial complex go nuts and make it sound like he is trying to abolish the Constitution.

Let’s wish Trump luck. I know my dad would.

Ditto for our regaining proper control of the Panama Canal. My father strongly opposed the Carter administration’s decision to transfer it to Panama.

He argued that the U.S. was its rightful owner, but he never won that fight and over time the majority of Americans stopped caring about it.

The Panamanians still operate the canal and get the revenues.

The influence of the Chinese Communist government is worth worrying about and Trump has correctly said we have the right to reassert our control as a matter of national security, if necessary.

Earlier this week it looked like new Secretary of State Marco Rubio, had gotten some concessions from Panama’s government that would allow U.S. warships to use it for free, but that’s apparently still up in the air.

As for Iran, another “thanks a whole bunch” is owed to the ghost of Jimmy Carter and his foreign policy of weakness.

My dad opposed the way Carter did nothing to stop the Shah of Iran from being deposed by the mullahs and ever since they have been a thorn in our side, a generous patron of Islamic terrorism and a danger to peace in the region.

The Obama and Biden administrations made Iran a potential nuclear threat by failing to enforce sanctions and allowing it to accelerate its nuclear program and fund terrorism.

Today Iran is bigger, badder and stronger than it was 44 years ago.

It and the whole Middle East — from what’s left of Gaza to Syria and Iraq – is still a bloody, complicated and intractable geopolitical mess that haunts us every day.

You don’t have to be Ronald Reagan’s son to think he could have made things turn out better.

Copyright 2025 Michael Reagan