This week, abortion provider Planned Parenthood helped promote the idea that cutting the federal government's support of the Special Olympics amounts to "white supremacy."
Activist Wagatwe Wanjuki, who writes on "gender, race, and inequality," wrote on Twitter, "Betsy DeVos has been wildly effective at pushing our government's white supremacist goals. Ableism is a part of white supremacy. Defunding the Special Olympics is absolutely a part of that."
The Planned Parenthood Action Fund Twitter account soon retweeted the sentiment:
The Trump administration's plan to cut funding for the Special Olympics has been met with derision by Democrats, and has even been widely panned even by Republicans and conservatives, albeit for different reasons. DeVos has cited budget concerns as the motivation for the cut, but Theodore Kupfer of National Review notes:
One problem with not taking deficits seriously is that when you propose unpopular spending cuts, then justify them by referring to “our current budget realities,” people aren’t likely to take your justification seriously.Republican senator Roy Blunt, chairman of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee, issued a statement asserting that the cut would not be allowed to stand:
I’m a longtime supporter of the Special Olympics and proud that Missouri is home to the largest Special Olympics training facility in the world. I was just at the World Games and saw, as I have many times before, what a huge impact the organization has on athletes, their families, and their communities. Our Department of Education appropriations bill will not cut funding for the program.Financial statements for the Special Olympics for 2017 show that federal grants make up about 10 percent of the group's annual revenues. In that year, total revenues amounted to $148,726,084 including federal grants of $15,461,400.
In 2018, Politico reported that Betsy DeVos pledged to personally donate a portion of her government salary of approximately $200,000 to the Special Olympics. DeVos says she support the Special Olympics, but that the federal government cannot support all such worthy causes. In a press release from the Department of Education, DeVos wrote:
The Special Olympics is not a federal program. It's a private organization. I love its work, and I have personally supported its mission. Because of its important work, it is able to raise more than $100 million every year. There are dozens of worthy nonprofits that support students and adults with disabilities that don't get a dime of federal grant money. But given our current budget realities, the federal government cannot fund every worthy program, particularly ones that enjoy robust support from private donations.
