So last night I was geared up to hear what I thought might possibly be a well-detailed, well-thought out policy plan for Sarah Palin to give today to many intent listeners. After all, she has to make up a lot of ground here in gaining voter respect. I am sure many special needs advocates, many much more experienced than I, were listening to maybe hear a glimmer of hope for their children and their family’s. Instead, what did we get. We got fluff. Pure, ass-kissing fluff. Basically it was "I have one too, so I feel your pain". That is all fine and well, but it does nothing for our children. There was much talk about what we already knew, and little stubstance of what we desperately need to hear. As parents, we know our children are special. We know they are God’s gift. My daughter specifically has a genetic disorder so rare that she is one of approximately 30 children like her in the world that we know of. I don’t need a speech from someone to reassure me of how special my child is.
I, like other families need McCain and Palin, or Obama and Biden to NOT cut medicaid funding, but rather, increase it. We need people to increase funding for programs of therapy, programs for providing equipment, etc. We need school district funding to increase so that at 3, our children have an easy and fulfilling transition into our school districts for therapy. Yes, we need the option of choice of school, but the problem is that we need more and better schools. Without government funding, that is difficult to get.
I heard Sarah Palin talk about special needs trusts. Someone very close to me has a child with CP and her daugther is almost 20 years old now. Until very recently she was not able to even think about contributing to a special needs trust because she has been too busy paying for every other accomodation, therapy, travel cost to hospital, piece of equipment, daycare, etc, etc, etc. A special needs trust is great but no one has money to put into it!!!!!!!!!!!!
Again, I don’t need Sarah Palin to be my emotional support system for my child’s disorder. I can get that for free. I need her, or whoever gets in the office, to be the political force that gets funding for our needs. Our kids need the leaders to listen to them and their families. They need to listen to the needs direclty and do what is right for them. It is funding. FUNDING, FUNDING, FUNDING. Maybe Palin should change her chant. Funding Baby, Funding. Or maybe, we could take the $4billion in taxcuts that McCain favors for the Oil companies and cover all of our kids needs.
I think Sarah Palin should also consider changing her support of Amendment 51 in Colorado that is getting such bipartisan support in the state. A $.01 sales tax increase for 2 years could go a long way to helping many of the people who need it. Until she does at least that, I will never believe that she has any idea what special needs families go through
Political Mamma