Sign the petition re: Betsy DeVos

Sign the petition telling the Department of Education you want the Special Olympics funding not to be cut in the 2020 budget.

Dear MoveOn member,

As part of the 2020 budgeting process, Betsy DeVos is proposing morally bankrupt funding cuts which will hurt children with disabilities and working-class folks—including nearly $18 million in cuts to the Special Olympics. This proposal, laid out in a draft of Trump's 2020 fiscal year budget, could impact 272,000 children across the country.¹

Sign my petition telling Betsy DeVos and the Department of Education not to cut funding for the Special Olympics and other important programs our children rely upon.

Tell the Department of Education not to cut funding for vital programs like the Special Olympics and commit to using public funding to help children who are counting on all of us to look out for them.

Overall, DeVos is proposing a 12% agency cut to the department—impacting special education programs Americans rely on such as the Special Olympics, special education grants to states, the National Technical Institute for the Blind, and Gallaudet University—even though she wants a 15.6% increase in executive salaries.²

The Special Olympics was created in order to support healthy competition among children and adults with intellectual and physical disabilities. This program has over 5 million folks across the world competing in 170 countries.

Tell Betsy DeVos we can do better than this. No cuts to these crucial programs.

Special education and opportunities for children such as the Special Olympics are vital to the success and overall development of children with disabilities. Betsy DeVos is suggesting that "difficult decisions" needed to be made in order to draft this budget proposal, but to slash federal funding for the Special Olympics is not "difficult," it is morally bankrupt.

The Trump administration seems to have no problem spending taxpayer money on the president's regular trips to golf and fly to Florida for weekends. They seem to have no problem spending federal money to lock up children who have been separated from their parents. They seem to have no problem funding endless wars around the world.

But when it comes to our children's education, health, and well-being, we're supposed to believe they can't continue to fund some of the most popular programs in our nation?

Click here to add your name to this petition, and then pass it along to your friends and family.

Thank you.

-Rep. Mark Pocan

Sources:

1. "DeVos blasted again for proposing cuts to the Special Olympics," CNN, March 26, 2019
https://act.moveon.org/go/64155?t=6&akid=230275%2E10220574%2EuiYmtz

2. Tweeted by Rep. Mark Pocan, March 26, 2019
https://act.moveon.org/go/64156?t=8&akid=230275%2E10220574%2EuiYmtz

You're receiving this petition because we thought it might interest you. It was created on MoveOn.org, where anyone can start their own online petitions. You can start your own petition here.

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