The Trump administration budget, as in prior years, proposes cutting $17.6 million of federal funding for the Special Olympics. Even though this particular spending cut has been ignored by Congress in previous years, the public response has been mostly outrage.
White House yesterday: Liberals have created a delusional fantasy in their heads that we’re supervillains
White House today: We’re defunding the Special Olympics to pay for a racism wall
— Jess Dweck (@TheDweck) March 27, 2019
Cuts to autism funding and ending all for @SpecialOlympics is outrageous. When I was chair of the House Budget Cmte, we worked to balance the budget & these types of programs were off limits – for good reason. Hope ldrs in DC stop this ridiculous proposal. https://t.co/7Y6VxyKQW8
— John Kasich (@JohnKasich) March 27, 2019
This is so wrong on so many Levels! I will continue to spend my time and resources with the @SpecialOlympics now more than ever. I’m Literally sick 2 my stomach!!!!! https://t.co/vgUjd5nCFq
— Joe Haden (@joehaden23) March 27, 2019
But despite the outrage, the Trump administration is right: the federal government should cut its funding for the Special Olympics.
Consider the role of the federal government. Everything it funds should have good answers to these questions: What does the program do, and is it absolutely vital to the country? If the answer is that it’s not vital, but it just seems like a nice thing to do, then it’s hard to justify it forcing people to spend their money on something they could voluntarily donate to.
The Special Olympics does not need federal funding. Thankfully, they do a great job generating revenue on their own. During the 2016 fiscal year, they earned $111.7 million in revenue (with only about $11.5 million, or 10 percent, coming from the federal government) and had $109.9 million in expenses, meaning they had a $1.8 million surplus — plus, $61.3 million in net assets. Corporate sponsorships and direct mail contributions comprised more than 80 percent of its revenue stream, while investments and other fundraising comprised about another 10 percent.
Rather than treating it like a government agency, the Special Olympics should be treated like any other private charity. The Special Olympics are a tax-exempt 501(c)3 organization which puts together sporting events for the mentally and physically impaired, and provides them with free health screenings. But health screenings are not a universal right that must be funded by federal taxpayers (they can be purchased at CVS), and putting together sporting events for the mentally and physically impaired can be accomplished well without federal funding — after all, there are plenty of sports leagues for athletes with disabilities that don’t receive federal funding.
If you really want to support the Special Olympics, donate to them today instead of relying on the federal government to donate for you.
If the government really wants to help people with mental and physical impairments, they could start by doing something about the number of them who are aborted because of their condition and never given a chance to live. That seems like a bigger deal than whether or not the Special Olympics might have to make a few administrative cuts, write more grant proposals, invest more existing assets, and solicit more donations.
Tom Joyce (@TomJoyceSports) is a freelance writer who has been published with USA Today, the Boston Globe, Newsday, ESPN, the Detroit Free Press, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Federalist, and a number of other media outlets.
