If you don’t keep up with the news, but you’re wondering why everyone’s talking about the Special Olympics funding, then let me break it down for you.
This is Betsy DeVos, our current Secretary of Education. The Secretary of Education is a member of the President’s Executive Cabinet, which is a bunch of people that are heads of different departments and advise the president on issues related to their department.
DeVos was nominated by Trump and approved by the Senate in early 2017 shortly after Trump took office. One of her major policies both before and after she took office as Secretary has been to push school choice. School choice is a whole mess that involves the federal government funding private schools, but if you want to learn more about it then I suggest reading this article by the Washington Post.
Now to the issue at hand, funding the Special Olympics. DeVos wants to cut federal spending to the Special Olympics. Yes, you read that right DeVos wants to defund the Special Olympics. Pretty much the only thing we can agree on as a nation right now is that the Special Olympics is generally a good thing and DeVos wants to defund that? Crazy.
DeVos argues that because the Special Olympics is a private organization and not a federal one, federal money shouldn’t be spent on it. Another point DeVos makes is that the Special Olympics doesn’t have a funding problem and that any cuts to its funding would be made up by the private sector by philanthropic donations.
I agree that the private sector would make up any cuts to the Special Olympics budget, but why should there even be a need for that? Of course, if there are any cuts to the fucking Special Olympics people are gonna donate to make it up, that’s just common sense. The Special Olympics is something that people would rather spend more money on, not cut the budget.
If you’re surprised that anyone would even suggest this, then I think we’re all pretty much thinking the same thing. Even Trump, the orange shitbag sitting in our Oval Office, decided to use his authority for good and withdrew this suggested cut from the Education Department’s proposed budget. But this isn’t even the first time DeVos has suggested this, it’s the third.
It seems at this point that there won’t be any cuts to the Special Olympics funding, but the fact is it never should have been considered. By even suggesting these cuts, the Education Department shows that their priorities lie with their economic interests over their moral ones. Obviously, the department isn’t funding the Special Olympics because it’s an investment or a federal program, they’re funding it because it’s the right fucking thing to do.