Betsy DeVos: “Cut My Department’s Budget, Please!”
Usually, members of the President’s Cabinet go before Congress to defend their department’s budget and to explain the good works the department is doing.
Not Secretary DeVos! She went to a Congressional heading to ask the Appropriations Committee to cut her budget.
Much has been made of her plea to zero out federal support for the Special Olympics, which backfired. Not only were the families of 272,000 participants offended but so were the families of many millions of people with disabilities. Trump quickly res indeed the cut, which was a tiny sliver of the ED budget, equivalent to six weekend trips to Mar-a-Lago by Trump.
Many more programs were jeopardized, as Denis Smith writes here.
“In her testimony before the House Education Appropriations Subcommittee on Tuesday, Betsy DeVos, the anti-public education Secretary of Education, was present to defend $7 billion in proposed cuts to her department. The cuts in the education budget are seen as measures to offset billions in lost revenue from tax breaks for the wealthy that have exploded the federal deficit.
“An examination of Trump’s FY2020 budget shows that the administration is asking to cut the Department of Education’s funding from $71 billion to $64 billion, eliminating 29 programs. In addition to zeroing out popular and proven programs like Special Olympics, which has garnered strong support during its 50-year CONTINUE READING: Betsy DeVos: “Cut My Department’s Budget, Please!” | Diane Ravitch's blog
