SMALL FAVORS
Ivins, Molly
SMALL FAVORS Molly Ivins A Time for Sustained Outrage So the tree is down, the bills are due, you stepped on the scale, and here come January, February, RyKrisp, and cottage cheese. Tis the...
...One has visions of a whole generation of tiny method actors feigning cerebral palsy and spina bifida...
...But what else are we to make of the Gingrich plan to beat up on crippled poor children...
...But it does require understanding that a lesser horror is not preferable to a greater horror...
...Without SSI, Kristy would have been institutionalized a long time ago...
...It's remarkable...
...I ask on behalf of my friend Kristy Reyna, age sixteen, who was born with spina bifida...
...But that is not the choice...
...Now is the time to take up Chilton's banner...
...Tis the season to get real...
...Would it not be better to, say, tighten the requirements for certification than to cut the entire program...
...When criticized for his orphanage proposal, Gingrich replied, "Better the orphanage than the dumpster...
...Since I have a hard time believing even the Republicans are serious about such proposals, I conclude that their purpose is to exhaust everyone's indignation early so that lesser horrors can be slipped through without objection...
...It is not all that easy to fake cerebral palsy, spina bifida, or mental retardation...
...The R's want to replace SSI, which can be spent for food, clothing, shelter, or special services such as baby-sitters, braces, and wheelchairs, with a system of vouchers for a limited range of medical services...
...The draft-dodging, dope-smoking, dead-beat-dad Newt Gingrich could well be behind a vile plot to exhaust liberal outrage...
...Generally speaking, doctors notice these conditions, and one cannot get SSI without doctors' certification...
...An approach that is both cruel and stupid...
...I speak of the Republican plan to cut SSI, the program that provides sliding amounts of cash for children with cerebral palsy, spina bifida, and mental retardation who live below the poverty level...
...That's a helluva two-fer...
...Sustained outrage" was the working motto of the late Ned Chilton of West Virginia, who is the rarest of the rare—a heroic newspaper publisher...
...Setting up false choices will be a favored tactic in the battles ahead...
...She's had more than fifteen operations, so we're fairly sure she's not faking it...
...Normally, I skip paranoid scenarios on the grounds that there's enough free-floating paranoia in this country already...
...Sustained outrage does not preclude humor, as everyone who knew Ned Chilton remembers...
...Putting Kristy in an institution would costs tens of thousands of dollars a year...
...Their reported objection to SSI is that they suspect some of it is going to kids who don't have serious problems, and that some parents are coaching their kids to fake disabilities...
...The difference between tired old liberals like Bill Clinton, who believe in making government work, and the draft-dodging, dope-smoking, dead-beat-dad Newt Gingrich, who doesn't believe in government at all, is the difference between an SSI program that helps poor crippled kids (but not tiny method actors) and no program at all...
...This is a big deal for the Reynas, but it's only costing in the low three figures...
...I mean, here we are in a world of agriculture subsidies, drilling write-offs, below-market Federal grazing fees, orange-juice advertising subsidies, and so on and so forth, and the Gingrich plan is to cut off poor crippled kids...
...M Molly Ivins, a columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, appears in this space every month...
...When Kristy's mom, Hope Reyna, heard about the Republican proposal to kill the SSI program, she stopped dead for a long minute and then said, "Tell them I would be happy to give up any amount of money in the whole world if Kristy could just walk...
...It's getting harder and harder for even the strongest members of her family to lift Kristy in and out of the tub, so some of her SSI money is being used to install a special shower stall...
...Which brings us to the ax versus the scalpel...
...She'll be able to wheel her chair into it, boost herself onto a stool, and take a shower with controls at her hand-height all by herself...
Vol. 59 • February 1995 • No. 2
