Sarah Palin lies about health care reform and the jeopardy it poses for young Trig's life with seeming impunity. We know that. It's maddening! I just wrote a letter to the editor at the New York Times objecting to a story about the health care debate that didn't once mention the campaign of lies and deception emanating from right-wing circles.
I find this outrageous, absolutely. But what outrages and confounds me all the more is that no one in the media has felt compelled to compare the recent right-wing sanctimony over the danger reform supposedly means for people with disabilities with the Republican party's consistent pursuit for policies and spending priorities that hurts people with disabilities.
Full disclosure: I just fulfilled my dream of becoming a social entrepreneur by opening an agency that supports adults with developmental disabilities to live independently in their communities!
Here in the state of California, the Governor and a Republican minority in the legislature have managed to leverage a quirk in the political system to systematically reduce funding for services to people with developmental disabilities by about 10% in most programs just in the past 18 months. That reduction negates the hard-fought funding increases from 2006, which were the first increases in almost a decade for these kinds of supports for disabled people. The result is that the weakest and most vulnerable among us are receiving ever less support and are seeing a continual erosion of resources in their communities. The unemployment rate among the disabled population hovers around 75%. Many people who want to live on their own or have a job - and who are capable of doing so - can't because there aren't enough services for them.
The script varies according to state and local laws and programs, but much the same dynamic is in play in many states, thanks to Republican efforts. Let's not forget the Republican's ongoing opposition to the Americans with Disabilities Act, its provisions and its enforcement. (And it's also worth recalling that the very system Republicans now think is extravagant and want to cut was created while Ronald Reagan was Governor, and that community-based services cost about 1/4 than services provided within institutions. If the blatant hypocrisy among Republicans doesn't seem newsworthy, I'd like to think there's some in the media and political circles who could at least appreciate the irony that's also on display here in abundance.)
The fact is that Republicans have a dismal record on disability issues. It's simply inexplicable to me
that that isn't part of the story. To me it IS the story!
We can make it part of the story when we talk to our Representatives and call or write letters to the media.