Columns
Lillibeth Navarro
CALIF - Executive Director
July 22nd, 2009
Pick Someone Your Own Size, Governor! Bullies always blame their troubles and irritations on other people as a deviation from their inadequacies. Governor Schwarzenegger’s ranting and raving about homecare & Calworks’ fraud make him the perfect bully. Go ahead, blame it on homecare and Calworks fraud, on the disabled and working poor and see if it sticks. It does not mask the gross inadequacy of this state government to pass a just and fair budget, being debated now for a year and a half. Compare the State when Governor Schwarzenegger first took over: it was not that bad. Now we have state workers suffering 3 days of furlough, the disabled losing Medi-Cal services, thousands threatened with homecare cuts and a catastrophic deficit. The fact is, Governor Schwarzenegger by not signing the budget, singularly added another four billion dollars more to the state’s deficit of $24 billion. It’s shameful of course and he desperately needs to blame this on someone and something—aha, here are the easier targets-- the disabled and their homecare and the poor and their Calworks! What a miserable lack of imagination and courage! His insistence on fixing the fraud in homecare and Calworks is like stopping to fix a nick on a boat that is fast sinking the way California is under his failed leadership. In his proverbial sinking boat, he very clearly dooms the first people he wishes to throw into the water—the disabled and poor.
The governor should know that we,20the people do not have the luxury of acting out a movie script like he does where scarred and bruised—he always prevails against all odds and enemies in the end. Ours is real life and we are real people. We are the very people this state government is mandated to serve, the people who are actually going to bleed, and get hurt with the brutal cuts to homecare, Medi-Cal, Supplemental Security Income, Healthy Families, Calworks and other programs. In real life, it is the poor, the young, the elderly and the disabled who have unbelievable odds of poverty, illness, disability & discrimination. Because these odds are formidable, American generosity and ingenuity built a reasonable safety net which Governor Schwarzenegger and his allies now trying to completely wipe out. It would be very hard to rebuild one of the best homecare programs in the US, if we allow them to destroy it. It would cost the state $25.2 billion to care for thousands now thriving nicely with homecare to go to institutions. Not only is this economic suicide, it would also be a violation of the Olmstead Supreme Court decision that ruled independent living outside institutions as a civil right.
Obviously, instead on focusing on a reasonable solution of cuts and revenue, he insists on only his ideas--his way or the highway and he is willing for California to fall off a cliff. His myopic insistence on an all-cuts budget is cruel and criminal. In traditional Terminator style, Governor Schwarzenegger is aiming to decimate our homecare program and other safety net programs and throw thousands from their homes to the brutal streets of our urban centers. The homecare program that provides long term care to 400,000 Californians is costing the State only $2 billion. This California program ranks 6th in the nation and was used as model for a national effort to nationalize home care. Just add a tobacco tax of $1.50 per pack of cigarettes and it will totally fund homecare and close that gap. Add a nickel per beer and it will fully fund Medi-Cal. While he rants and raves about the fraud in homecare and Calworks, he and the legislators failed to inform people about the two billion dollars in permanent cuts they gave in February to Chevron, Walmart and other stable corporations—an irresponsible thing to do in this difficult economic climate.
When the bleeding starts and he yanks homecare from the elderly and disabled, we will have to charge Governor Schwarzenegger with criminal abandonment and elder abuse; when he yanks Healthy Families from the children, we will have to charge him with criminal neglect; when he cuts funding to the Regional Centers and Day Programs, we will have to charge him disability discrimination and the list would just go on. Are we dealing with a public servant or public enemy #1?
Friday - July 17, 2009
The Brentwood Two
I congratulate Cynde Soto for her 3rd arrest for Independent
Living! What a trooper--she's a real hero! She and I were processed
and given our arrest tickets. Audrey Harthorn and George Layton's
vans were blocked from getting in and Randy Horton made it on time.
Many thanks too for Marta Russel and the excellent points she made to
the press about the need to raise revenue--she really boosted my
spirits, a real ADAPTer!
It was overkill for the LAPD--there were probably 50 of them and a
mere 100 of us and only 6 of us on wheelchairs! There was a blue
inaccessible paddy wagon so they processed us in place. I saw some
brothers and sisters from the DD community--kudos to them too! This
is a little seed and with all your help--we will grow to perhaps 100
people on wheelchairs shutting them down. There were the workers, the
students, the Calworks recipients.
Considering the odds: a very short notice, a difference of
philosophy in our community about the target, and many many others,
with God's immense grace and the help of our allies, we pulled it
off.
"With every cut, he encroached closer and closer to the security of
our homes but with his threats to home care for 400,000 recipients,
he crossed the line and got utterly vicious and personal..
Arnold, you chose to live in a mansion and that's fine but live and
let live! How dare you threaten the only program that keeps us
living independent & free! Well, we're at your front door now! How
do you like it? Come out of there and explain to the people why you
can't balance this budget! Why you cannot raise taxes, why you only
target the poor and disabled! You have your mansion and however
humble we have our homes. We will keep our homes, Arnold, our
independence and our dignity and will never, ever, let you tread on
our homes again!"