Services for Autistic children under attack by Gov. Schwarzenegger !!

Marty Omoto, Legislative Director | 12/04/03 | pollywog

[pollywog]

This just came in to a group I am on today. Parents of children with disabilites should be quite concerned about this. For our family we have a severely autistic 25 year old son, and a disabled 12 year old. I can tell you that if these services of respite and help are cut out , it will effect us terribly. We CANNOT begin at our age to handle these handicaps without help.

[pollywog]

I am sorry this is such a long post but I feel it is so important. I am ALL for budget cuts. I think spending money that we don't have is plain old wrong. BUT for goodness sakes, don't take it away from the disabled and handicapped.!!!

[DoughtyOne]

Sadly, it always seems this is the stuff they cut first. My wife works for an organization that is directly affected by the cutbacks you have mentioned. I still maintain that if we had any idea how much commissions and the teacher's unions siphon off the state budget, we'd be stringing some people up.

Good luck to you. I know these programs certainly put the money to good use. I support them getting it.

[netmilsmom]

Can you give us the short version of this?

[Callahan]

Every government program is "vital." That's why we can never eliminate anything. We'll just keep on our merry, bankrupt way and tax the "rich" for the money we need.

[byteback]

FRom what I've heard the bill is eliminating things like personal in home cleaning and paying parents to be parents. It's obvious that we are way overboard on the amount of welfare that taxpayers are saddled with.

[Incorrigible]

Autism Bump

[pollywog]

Every government program is "vital." That's why we can never eliminate anything. We'll just keep on our merry, bankrupt way and tax the "rich" for the money we need.

I can tell you have never had experience with a autistic child or adult.The wear on a marriage, family and then trickle down effect into the community is staggering.!!

[dts32041]

Funny I don't see anything about cutting road maintenance or building or delivering the mail or protecting the citizens.

Therefore nothing vital has been cut.

BTW did they ever remove the luxury phone tax imposed as a temporary measure during the Spanish American war.

To California go back to mexico where you want to be.

[Numbers Guy]

Every government program is "vital." That's why we can never eliminate anything. We'll just keep on our merry, bankrupt way and tax the "rich" for the money we need.

Another way to save a significant amount of money with these programs is to means test them and have the users pay for them on a sliding scale. The greater the income, the greater the user contribution. That doesn't save the full amount, but it's much more difficult for someone to argue that people with decent incomes shouldn't pay for a portion (or all, if they're making a large income) of respite and other services. And those families who can't afford respite services are still fully covered.

[oceanview]

but you are making the salient point: you can cut the cost of the program by reforming the waste, fraud and abuse while still delivering the core service. that's the problem with government services, they grow into out of control bureaucracies. we have some relatives who work for local government here in suburban NY; for example, they have a bus service that picks up senior citizens at their homes and shuttle them around town to senior centers, food shopping, etc. two government workers drive the buses, 4 others "manage" the program and likely receive salaries and pensions higher then the workers delivering the service (the bus drivers). that's what they have to go after.

[ETERNAL WARMING]

I am sorry this is such a long post but I feel it is so important. I am ALL for budget cuts. I think spending money that we don't have is plain old wrong. BUT for goodness sakes, don't take it away from the disabled and handicapped.!!!

Where should they cut polly? What can they cut that won't hurt somebody? I'm sympathetic to your case, but the cuts hurt everyone, and everyone is desperate. Every group says, "Not I!!!"

[pollywog]

FRom what I've heard the bill is eliminating things like personal in home cleaning and paying parents to be parents. It's obvious that we are way overboard on the amount of welfare that taxpayers are saddled with.

IHSS ,( In Home Supportive Services),is basically a program to enable parents to keep their disabled adult children at home and not have to place them in a institution. We receive IHSS right now in order to provide someone to come help us with our handicapped son. We cannot possibly think of doing it alone. He weighs 180lbs, and we are in our 60s!!My husband bathes, cares for,feeds , shaves, etc, our son. Without help from the outside we will have to place him in a government facility!!

[FreedomCalls]

We CANNOT begin at our age to handle these handicaps without help.

That's what churches and charities are for. You ARE a member of a church aren't you? If so, ask and ye shall receive.

[ambrose]

Yup. For every program, there's a committed interest group that genuinely feel that the spending is "vital"... That's how this budget mess got created in the first place.

[oceanview]

and this is the problem, they take folks like you who are deserving of the government service, and not knowing the amount of waste contained within it, they put the fear of god into you by telling you that the "cuts" involve pulling the program. its just like when voters fail to vote for massive school tax increases, the first thing they cut is school bus service because they know that hurts the parent's the most. in the meantime, the $200K superintendents and their bloated staffs remain untouched.

[pollywog]

Where should they cut polly? What can they cut that won't hurt somebody? I'm sympathetic to your case, but the cuts hurt everyone, and everyone is desperate. Every group says, "Not I!!!"

How about cutting funding to illegals!! How about cutting out " FREE HEALTH" to those children who come across our borders illegally? How about stopping the " Save the Whales" projects??

[Texas Eagle]

Don't fall for it. There are probably 50 programs for autistic children in California. Odds are 99% of the money goes to nameless faceless bureaucrats anyway.

[GeronL]

What they need to cut is bureaucrats. We could cut welfare spending in half and still get more money to the poor if we had an efficient welfare system.

[netmilsmom]

Who will take care of him when you are gone?