Sports

Special Olympians pay for America’s red ink

Bob CollinsBob Collins Mar 27, 2019

The nation is awash in red ink, debt hastened by President Trump’s tax cuts in 2018. It was pretty much a given that subsequent budgets would have to pay for the giveaway through cuts to those with the least political power, but the announcement this week that the administration will whack support for Special Olympics still took people by surprise and a fair amount of disgust.

It’s an $18 million proposed cut — chump change in the federal budget proposal from Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.

“We had to make some difficult decisions with this budget,” DeVos told a House subcommittee.

DeVos didn’t know how many special needs kids would be affected when Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) asked her, according to ESPN.

He knew — 272,000.

But she said philanthropy could take up the slack, and she’s written a check or two to the organization.

“We are not doing our children any favors when we borrow from their future in order to invest in systems and policies that are not yielding better results,” DeVos said in her prepared remarks about the budget, which seeks to boost charter schools.

“Man, I mean, that’s a tough one,” Derek Schottle, 29, said in an interview with The Washington Post for a column today. “All I can do is pray for the Special Olympics.”

“We’re all humans just like everybody else,” he said. “We can do great things in this world. No matter what happens, we want to continue to bring love and joy to people around the world.”

“I do pray that we continue — for me personally, I want to continue,” he said. “As far as the government and that situation, I can’t control what they do, but I pray that it doesn’t happen.”

Derek, whose nickname is “Tank,” didn’t take the bait when asked about the administration’s message.

“I don’t like to attack anyone,” he said.

Special, indeed.

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