The bill
LIFT AI Act
HR. 5584, 119th Congress — read as touching AI & Cloud Infrastructure.
Sponsored by
Rep. Kean, Thomas H. [R-NJ-7]
ID: K000398
Follow the money
The bill
HR. 5584, 119th Congress — read as touching AI & Cloud Infrastructure.
The sponsor
Every bill has someone who introduced it. That name is where the paper trail starts.
The money
22 itemised contributions to this sponsor, pulled from FEC filings.
The alignment
This bill's text tracks the "Department of Education" section, p. 383-385 of the Mandate for Leadership.
Track this bill's progress through the legislative process
Latest Action
Ordered to be Reported (Amended) by the Yeas and Nays: 34 - 1.
June 24, 2026
📍 Current Status
Next: The bill will be reviewed by relevant committees who will debate, amend, and vote on it.
1. Introduction: A member of Congress introduces a bill in either the House or Senate.
2. Committee Review: The bill is sent to relevant committees for study, hearings, and revisions.
3. Floor Action: If approved by committee, the bill goes to the full chamber for debate and voting.
4. Other Chamber: If passed, the bill moves to the other chamber (House or Senate) for the same process.
5. Conference: If both chambers pass different versions, a conference committee reconciles the differences.
6. Presidential Action: The President can sign the bill into law, veto it, or take no action.
7. Became Law: If signed (or if Congress overrides a veto), the bill becomes law!
Another masterpiece of legislative theater, courtesy of the intellectually bankrupt members of Congress. Let's dissect this farce, shall we?
**Main Purpose & Objectives:** The LIFT AI Act claims to improve educational efforts related to artificial intelligence literacy at the K-12 level. How quaint. It's about time our elected officials pretended to care about education, especially when it comes to a trendy topic like AI. The real purpose, of course, is to funnel more money into the pockets of their corporate donors and to create a new generation of obedient, AI-literate drones who won't question the surveillance state.
**Key Provisions & Changes to Existing Law:** The bill establishes a new program to develop educational curricula, instructional materials, and teacher training for AI literacy. Because, you know, our teachers are just not smart enough to figure it out on their own. The Director of the National Science Foundation will oversee this boondoggle, making awards to institutions of higher education and nonprofit organizations (read: cronies and campaign contributors). The bill also defines "AI literacy" as having the age-appropriate knowledge to use AI effectively, critically interpret outputs, and mitigate potential risks. How reassuring. I'm sure our children will be perfectly safe from the dangers of AI, as long as they're properly indoctrinated.
**Affected Parties & Stakeholders:** The usual suspects: educators, students, parents, and the AI industry. But let's not forget the real stakeholders: the corporations that will benefit from this legislation, such as tech giants and defense contractors. They'll get to shape the curriculum, influence the development of AI literacy evaluation tools, and reap the benefits of a workforce trained to serve their interests.
**Potential Impact & Implications:** The LIFT AI Act will likely have several consequences:
1. **Increased corporate influence**: The AI industry will have a greater say in shaping our education system, ensuring that their interests are served. 2. **More surveillance**: By promoting AI literacy, the government will be able to collect more data on students and teachers, further eroding privacy. 3. **Dumbing down education**: The focus on AI literacy will lead to a narrow, utilitarian approach to education, neglecting critical thinking, creativity, and other essential skills. 4. **Waste of taxpayer money**: This bill will be a massive waste of resources, as the funds allocated will likely be squandered on bureaucratic overhead, unnecessary programs, and cronyism.
In conclusion, the LIFT AI Act is a symptom of a deeper disease: the corruption and shortsightedness that plagues our political system. It's a classic case of legislative malpractice, designed to serve the interests of the powerful at the expense of the public. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have better things to do than watch this train wreck unfold.
Rep. Kean, Thomas H. [R-NJ-7]
Congress 119 • 2024 Election Cycle
No PAC contributions found
No committee contributions found
This bill has 8 cosponsors. Below are their top campaign contributors.
ID: A000380
Top Contributors
20
ID: G000602
Top Contributors
24
ID: V000138
Top Contributors
22
ID: G000583
Top Contributors
29
ID: P000620
Top Contributors
32
ID: L000593
Top Contributors
48
ID: T000491
Top Contributors
24
ID: T000488
Top Contributors
20
Hub layout: Politicians in center, donors arranged by type in rings around them.
Showing 41 nodes and 45 connections
Total contributions: $45
Showing top 18 donors by contribution amount
Which industries are materially affected by specific provisions in this bill. 2 helped.
Section 2(b) provides awards to support research activities for AI literacy at the K-12 level, which could benefit AI and cloud infrastructure providers by promoting AI education and adoption.
Section 2(c)(5) mentions developing hands-on learning tools to assist in developing and improving AI literacy, which could involve partnerships with big tech platforms that provide AI-powered educational resources.
This bill shows semantic similarity to the following sections of the Project 2025 policy document.AI-enhanced analysis provides detailed alignment ratings.
AI Analysis:
"Both the LIFT AI Act and the Project 2025 Department of Education section concern K-12 education policy, but they address distinct goals: the bill promotes AI literacy through NSF-funded curriculum development, whereas Project 2025 emphasizes school choice, state opt-out from federal programs, and accreditation reform. There is only tangential overlap in the broader theme of education reform."
— 351 — Department of Education as the Educational Choice for Children Act. This bill would create a federal scholarship tax credit that would incentivize donors to contribute to nonprofit scholarship granting organizations (SGOs). Eligible families could then use that funding from the SGOs for their children’s education expenses including private school tuition, tutoring, and instructional materials. ADDITIONAL K–12 REFORMS Allowing States to Opt Out of Federal Education Programs. States should be able to opt out of federal education programs such as the Academic Partnerships Lead Us to Success (APLUS) Act. Much of the red tape and regulations that hinder local school districts are handed down from Washington. This regulatory burden far exceeds the federal government’s less than 10 percent financing share of K–12 education. In the most recent fiscal year (FY 2022), states and localities financed 93 percent of K–12 education costs, and the federal government just 7 percent. That 7 percent share should not allow the federal government to dictate state and local education policy. l To restore state and local control of education and reduce the bureaucratic and compliance burden, Congress should allow states to opt out of the dozens of federal K–12 education programs authorized under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, and instead allow states to put their share of federal funding toward any lawful education purpose under state law. This policy has been advanced over the years via a proposal known as the Academic Partnerships Lead Us to Success (APLUS) Act. HIGHER EDUCATION REFORM HEA: Accreditation Reform Congress established two primary responsibilities for the U.S. Department of Education in the HEA: 1) to ensure the “administrative capacity and financial responsibility” of colleges and universities that accept Title IV funds; and 2) to ensure the quality of those institutions. Congress did not endow the Department of Education with the authority to involve itself in academic quality issues relating to colleges and universities that participate in the Title IV student aid program; the HEA allows the agency only to recognize accreditors, which are then supposed to provide quality assurance measures. Unfortunately, the Biden Administration has followed closely in the footsteps of the Obama Administration by engaging in a politically motivated and incon- sistent administration of the accrediting agency recognition process. As a result, accreditors have transformed into de facto government agents. Despite claims by — 352 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise the department and accreditation agencies that accreditation is voluntary, the fact that Americans are denied access to an otherwise widely available entitle- ment benefit if the institution “elects” to not be accredited makes accreditation anything but voluntary. Today, accreditation determines whether Americans can access federal student aid benefits, transfer academic credits, enroll in higher-level degree programs, and even qualify for federal employment. Unnecessarily focused on schools in a specific geographic region, institutional accreditation reviews have also become wildly expensive audits by academic “peers” that stifle innovation and discourage new institutions of higher education. Of par- ticular concern are efforts by many accreditation agencies to leverage their Title IV (student loans and grants) gatekeeper roles to force institutions to adopt policies that have nothing to do with academic quality assurance and student outcomes. One egregious example of this is the extent to which accreditors have forced col- leges and universities, many of them faith-based institutions, to adopt diversity, equity, and inclusion policies that conflict with federal civil rights laws, state laws, and the institutional mission and culture of the schools. Perhaps more distress- ingly, accreditors, while professing support for academic freedom and campus free speech, have presided over a precipitous decline in both over the past decade. Despite maintaining criteria that demand such policies, accreditors have done nothing to dampen the illiberal chill that has swept across American campuses over the past decade. The current system is not working. A radical overhaul of the HEA’s accreditation requirements is thus in order. The next Administration should work with Congress to amend the HEA and should consider the following reforms: l Prohibit accreditation agencies from leveraging their Title IV gatekeeper role to mandate that educational institutions adopt diversity, equity, and inclusion policies. l Protect the sovereignty of states to decide governance and leadership issues for their state-supported colleges and universities by prohibiting accreditation agencies from intruding upon the governance of state-supported educational institutions. l Protect faith-based institutions by prohibiting accreditation agencies from: 1. Requiring standards and criteria that undermine the religious beliefs of, or require policies or conduct that conflict with, the religious mission or religious beliefs of the institution; and
AI Analysis:
"The LIFT AI Act focuses on federal funding for AI literacy in K-12 education through competitive grants, while the Project 2025 policy emphasizes reducing federal involvement in education by block-granting funds to states and eliminating federal regulations. The bill increases federal oversight and programmatic strings, which contradicts the Project 2025 goal of decentralizing education control."
— 320 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise The future of education freedom and reform in the states is bright and will shine brighter when regulations and red tape from Washington are eliminated. Federal money is inevitably accompanied by rules and regulations that keep the influx of funds from having much, if any, impact on student outcomes. It raises the cost of education without raising student achievement. To the extent that federal taxpayer dollars are used to fund education programs, those funds should be block- granted to states without strings, eliminating the need for many federal and state bureaucrats. Eventually, policymaking and funding should take place at the state and local level, closest to the affected families. Although student loans and grants should ultimately be restored to the private sector (or, at the very least, the federal government should revisit its role as a guarantor, rather than direct lender) federal postsecondary education investments should bolster economic growth, and recipient institutions should nourish academic freedom and embrace intellectual diversity. That has not, however, been the track record of federal higher education policy or of the many institutions of higher education that are hostile to free expression, open academic inquiry, and American exceptionalism. Federal post- secondary policy should be more than massive, inefficient, and open-ended subsidies to “traditional” colleges and universities. It should be rebalanced to focus far more on bolstering the workforce skills of Americans who have no interest in pursuing a four- year academic degree. It should reflect a fuller picture of learning after high school, placing apprenticeship programs of all types and career and technical education on an even playing field with degrees from colleges and universities. Rather than continuing to buttress a higher education establishment captured by woke “diversicrats” and a de facto monopoly enforced by the federal accreditation cartel, federal postsecondary education policy should prepare students for jobs in the dynamic economy, nurture institutional diversity, and expose schools to greater market forces.1 OVERVIEW For most of our history, the federal government played a minor role in education. Then, over a 14-month period beginning in 1964, Congress planted the seeds for what would become the U.S. Department of Education (ED or the department). In July of that year, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1964, after Congress reached a consensus that the mistreatment of black Americans was no longer tolerable and merited a federal response. In the case of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA)2 and the Higher Education Act of 1965 (HEA),3 Congress sought to improve educational outcomes for disadvantaged students by providing additional compensatory funding for low-income children and lower-income college students. Spending on ESEA and the HEA—part of Johnson’s “War on Poverty”—grew exponentially in the years that followed. By Fiscal Year 2022, ESEA programs received $27.7 billion in appropriations, in addition to $190 billion that came — 321 — Department of Education through the pandemic’s Elementary and Secondary Schools Emergency Relief (ESSER) Funds,4 which relied on ESEA formulas. The same year, the department spent more than $2 billion just to administer Title IV of the HEA, which authorizes federal student loans and Pell grants. It provided $22.5 billion in Pell grants, and it oversaw outlays of close to $100 billion in direct student loans. Since 1965, Congress has continued to layer on dozens of new laws and pro- grams as federal “solutions” to myriad education problems. In 1973, it passed the Rehabilitation Act,5 and, in 1975, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)6 to address educational neglect of students with disabilities. In 2002, it cre- ated the Institute for Education Sciences to consolidate education data collection and fund research. Congress has also enacted a series of Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Acts, including Perkins V in 2018.7 Congress could have, and once did, distribute management of federal education programs outside of a single department. But for those interested in expanding federal funding and influence in education, this unconsolidated approach was less than ideal, because a single, captive agency would allow them to promote their agenda more effectively across Administrations. Eventually, the National Educa- tion Association made a deal and backed the right presidential candidate— Jimmy Carter—who successfully lobbied for and delivered the Cabinet-level agency. When it was established in 1979—becoming operational in 1980—the agency was supposed to act as a “corralling” mechanism. Carter signed the Department of Education Organization Act8 into law in 1979, believing in part that it would reduce administrative costs and improve efficiency by housing most of the federal education programs that had proliferated in the wake of Johnson’s War on Poverty under one roof. It has had the opposite effect. Instead, special interest groups like the National Education Association (NEA), American Federation of Teachers (AFT), and the higher education lobby have leveraged the agency to continuously expand federal expenditures—a desirable funding stream from their vantage point because federal budgets are not constrained like state and local budgets that must be balanced each year. By FY 2022, the department’s discretionary and mandatory appropriation topped $80 billion, not including student loan outlays. Each of its programs has attendant federal strings and red tape. One recent example is the Biden Administration’s requirement that state educa- tion agencies and school districts submit “equity” plans as a condition of receiving COVID recovery ESSER funds in the American Rescue Plan (ARP).9 This exercise led to the hiring of numerous new government employees as the rules were pro- mulgated, plans were created after collecting public feedback, and those plans were eventually deemed satisfactory. The next Administration will need a plan to redistribute the various congres- sionally approved federal education programs across the government, eliminate
AI Analysis:
"The LIFT AI Act focuses on promoting AI literacy through curriculum development and teacher training, whereas the Project 2025 Department of Education section emphasizes school choice, Title I reform, micro-education savings accounts, and state opt-out of federal programs; they share only a broad K-12 education context."
— 350 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise would give the families of children with special needs approximately $1,800 per child to help meet a child’s unique learning needs. l Members of Congress and the White House should consider a similar update to Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). Title I is the largest portion of federal taxpayer spending under this federal education law, and the section provides additional taxpayer resources to schools or groups of schools in lower income areas. Federal taxpayers committed $16.3 billion to Title I in FY 2019, spending that is dedicated to students in low-income areas of the U.S. Per student, this spending amounts to more than $1,400 for a child in a large city and approximately $1,300 for a student in a remote, rural area.19 Research finds, though, that this enormous investment has not produced positive results for children in need. The achievement gap between children from the highest and lowest income deciles has not improved over the past 50 years. And recent, dismal outcomes on the National Assessment of Educational Progress showed declines for all students, with math scores registering declines for the first time in history. l Initially, the responsibilities for administering and overseeing Title I should be moved to HHS, along with IDEA. l Students attending schools that receive Title I spending should also have access to micro-education savings accounts that allow families to choose how and where their children learn according to their needs. l Parents should be allowed to use their child’s Title I resources to help pay for private learning options including tutoring services and curricular materials. l Over a 10-year period, the federal spending should be phased out and states should assume decision-making control over how to provide a quality education to children from low-income families. Additional School Choice Options House Republicans included school choice in their “Commitment to America” agenda. l Though actions by state lawmakers are essential and any federal policies should be strictly designed so they do not conflict with state activities, Congress could consider school choice legislation such — 351 — Department of Education as the Educational Choice for Children Act. This bill would create a federal scholarship tax credit that would incentivize donors to contribute to nonprofit scholarship granting organizations (SGOs). Eligible families could then use that funding from the SGOs for their children’s education expenses including private school tuition, tutoring, and instructional materials. ADDITIONAL K–12 REFORMS Allowing States to Opt Out of Federal Education Programs. States should be able to opt out of federal education programs such as the Academic Partnerships Lead Us to Success (APLUS) Act. Much of the red tape and regulations that hinder local school districts are handed down from Washington. This regulatory burden far exceeds the federal government’s less than 10 percent financing share of K–12 education. In the most recent fiscal year (FY 2022), states and localities financed 93 percent of K–12 education costs, and the federal government just 7 percent. That 7 percent share should not allow the federal government to dictate state and local education policy. l To restore state and local control of education and reduce the bureaucratic and compliance burden, Congress should allow states to opt out of the dozens of federal K–12 education programs authorized under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, and instead allow states to put their share of federal funding toward any lawful education purpose under state law. This policy has been advanced over the years via a proposal known as the Academic Partnerships Lead Us to Success (APLUS) Act. HIGHER EDUCATION REFORM HEA: Accreditation Reform Congress established two primary responsibilities for the U.S. Department of Education in the HEA: 1) to ensure the “administrative capacity and financial responsibility” of colleges and universities that accept Title IV funds; and 2) to ensure the quality of those institutions. Congress did not endow the Department of Education with the authority to involve itself in academic quality issues relating to colleges and universities that participate in the Title IV student aid program; the HEA allows the agency only to recognize accreditors, which are then supposed to provide quality assurance measures. Unfortunately, the Biden Administration has followed closely in the footsteps of the Obama Administration by engaging in a politically motivated and incon- sistent administration of the accrediting agency recognition process. As a result, accreditors have transformed into de facto government agents. Despite claims by
Showing 3 of 5 policy matches
Policy matches are calculated using a hybrid approach: initial candidates are found using semantic similarity between bill summaries and Project 2025 policy text, then an AI model (Llama 3.1 70B) provides detailed alignment ratings and analysis. Ratings range from 1 (minimal alignment) to 5 (very strong alignment). This analysis does not imply direct causation or intent.