Aren't there any people with disabilities or know someone with disabilities that wants to weigh in?

-A

I am a Christian Democrat who is sick of this administration wearing my Lord as a badge and a gun and giving the real Christians a bad name. The only way to stop what is happening is impeachment. Three more years there will be nothing left. They have gutted everything. Get the movement going for impeachment. I have two disabled children.

This hard hearted policy got it's legs under Reagan, and according to a doctor on the board of directors at UCLA Medical Center, his, Reagan's policies, his cuts, his taking way of grants, set medicine back 35 years.

I saw the good medical funding accomplished for everyone, not only children. I know full well how important funding is for those who have afflicted children. They are often times in desparate need of help in so many ways.

It was heart warming to see the benefits of good caring medical personal taking care of the most needy and vulnerable, giving them proper medical care, what is needed, not only what they can afford.

It's a pity to think of those who have been denied proper medical and social care due to handicaps of any kind. Of course like Mark Shields has said, Congress and those on Capital Hill have the best medical care and insurance in the world, and if they had to go a month without it, they would fix it - and fast. I believe they would as well, at least to cover their own needs, as it seems ours just don't matter one tiny bit in this day and age with this administration and in the Senate, and Congress. I myself have benefited from some great programs, and would not be here without them or so I believe. I didn't have the funds for the 4 1/2 months spent in the hospital, fighting bone infection, or for flying in Polymexin by the quarts, as there wasn't enough in the country for my needs.

Remember, any day, any time anyone of us could be in need of a special program, a specialist, special medicines, and or treatment, due to accident, or illness. So many things can happen at any given moment, and change any of our lives forever. It would be a comfort to know that there are programs in place and a govenment which cares about its little children if not the rest of us.

How morally bankrupt to do this to children and their parents.

I wonder how much it would save the taxpayers to *not* have an ambulance and medical staff following Dick Cheney every where he goes. How many taxpayers can afford that kind of coverage (and who else's insurance would approve it?

Cutting the No Child Left Behind program *does* make some sense at least. Bush has promised to cut costs where government programs are not producing.

I am a special education attorney, welcome to my world! Bush has prevented the IDEA from being linked to No Child Left Behind as well. Another 8 years of Republicans and we can truly expect a generation of those who will fail to live up to their potential. As a professional and parent of a child with an IEP, I am DEEPLY saddened by this development.

Special Education Families need to unify - to unionize. That is what we are doing in New Jersey. See http://StudentAdvocate-NJ.org where we are forming the NJ Student Advocacy Union. We are challenging the state as it rewrites special education code to undermine the rights of our children. We are under attack on many fronts. The Supreme Court has shifted power even further against our children in its recent Schaffer decision. Meanwhile district administrators are appealing to backlash politics to scapegoat special education as the cause of taxpayer woes. Where these ugly appeals will lead remains to be seen. Parents need to unify together with students and advocates, together into a new political force to empower our children with disabilities who are among the most disenfranchised in our political system.

For more on what is needed, see http://StudentAdvocate-NJ.org

I was a Skill Home Provider from 1981 to 2001.

I saw the disabled go from a stipend from the government of $40.00 a month to $10.00.

Then Regan put a little know stipulation on the disabled. If they worked thru the State cleaning toliets which is what most of them did. For
$8.00 an hour. They outsourced and privatised the
programs and now were paid $2.00 an hour. Of course now they were not able to pay for their needs. Their hours were cut, they ended up being wharehoused most of the time, leaving them without structure during the day.

I watched while their world crumbled.