The press releases keep pouring in about the all-cuts budgets being proposed in the state house and senate, which slash everything from health care to education to environmental programs to human services. The latest program on the list is Adult Day Health Care, which provides case management, preventive health care, social activities and rehabilitation to 1,900 elderly and low-income people suffering from Alzheimer’s, traumatic brain injuries, and other serious medical conditions. The program allows folks who would otherwise have to live in nursing homes to stay in their homes and live relatively independent lives. Like cutting health care to low-income people (who then have to go to the emergency room, at orders of magnitude more expense, for routine medical problems), this cut really doesn’t make financial sense. Nursing homes, the option of next resort for these severely disabled and elderly individuals, cost nine to ten times as much as the Adult Day Health program. The house budget would eliminate the program entirely; the senate budget would cut its funding in half and eliminate all transportation assistance for the program’s clients.
Closer to home, the Seattle Human Services Coalition circulating a petition on Facebook demanding preemptively that the Seattle City Council maintain funding for all existing human services during the upcoming round of budget cuts. That may be optimistic; the city is currently facing a 2009 budget shortfall of at least $35 million.
violent revolt is the only solution.
HIPSTERS, EXERCISE YOUR SECOND AMENMENDT RIGHTS AND LET’S START CIVIL WAR 2: ELECTRIC BUGALOO!
The Welfare State is going bankrupt,
Big Governments titties are drying up,
the non-productive underclass is going to go hungry.
What?
Nothing on the bill for a flat state income tax of 1 percent on all income with a basic $500,000 exemption as PERMITTED BY OUR STATE CONSTITUTION?
Man, and for this I came back to Seattle.
“That may be optimistic; the city is currently facing a 2009 budget shortfall of at least $35 million.”
Hopefully, next time the city might consider having an adequate plan to clear snow from streets during what is the most crucial tax revenue generating period of the entire year.
That $35 mil shortfall and perhaps more was
likely lost during the time holiday shoppers couldn’t or wouldn’t hit the streets.
Funny how this was lost in post-game analysis.