Dem lawmaker blasts DeVos for proposed cuts for Special Olympics: ‘Shame on you’

Democratic Rep. Rosa DeLauro (Conn.) on Tuesday blasted Education Secretary Betsy DeVos for proposing budget cuts to programs including the Special Olympics and those that support students from low-income households.

“The three education budgets from this administration have proposed the largest cuts to education funding in four decades. That’s since the department was created in 1979,” DeLauro said at a hearing on DeVos’s proposed budget for the upcoming fiscal year, according to CNN.

{mosads}”Madam Secretary, I have to say, and maybe it’s offensive: Shame on you,” DeLauro, who chairs the Appropriations Committee’s education subcommittee, continued.

DeVos’s proposed 2020 budget would decrease funding for her department by 12 percent for the upcoming fiscal year.

Though the budget proposal has a slim chance of being adopted under a Democratic-controlled House, one of the funding cuts laid out in the proposal that has recently garnered attention from lawmakers is the Education secretary’s suggestion for cuts to the Special Olympics program.

“We had to make some difficult decisions with this budget,” DeVos said Tuesday while appearing before a House subcommittee to review the department’s proposed budget.

“I think the Special Olympics is an awesome organization, one that is supported by the philanthropic sector as well,” she said. 

The budget calls for millions of dollars in cuts to the Special Olympics as well as after-school programs and support for students from low-income households.