DeVos' proposed cut to Special Olympics is heartless

Regarding Secretary of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ recent House testimony, the proposal to cut funding for Special Olympics, blind children, and deaf children, isn’t about budget balancing (“DeVos defends plan to eliminate Special Olympics funding,” Mar. 27).

Rather, it’s about common decency. Hubert Humphrey said 50 years ago, “You judge a society by how it takes care of those in the dawn of life, those in the twilight of life, and those in the shadows of life.” The significant cutting of the Special Olympics budget, as recently proposed by Ms. DeVos, certainly follows the thought that “Where a man puts his treasures so is his heart.”

Special Olympics must not be where her heart is. And, if a budget that cuts funding for Special Olympics, as well as for blind children and for deaf children, represents how we feel as a nation about those in the “shadows of life,” it also tells us, as a nation, where our “heart is.”

If Betsy DeVos really represents our nation, then as a nation and as a society, we have defined ourselves and we have defined ourselves poorly.

Jim Mundy, Ellicott City