In the interest of expanding market share, New York Goldman Sachs Senator Charles Schumer proposes that we allow parents of disabled children to establish savings accounts for their disabled children’s care.
Smooth move, Senator. With one blow, you hope to undermine a core tenet of a civilized society and make all of your donors billionaires…again.
The core tenet of a civilized society is: what, you ask? Here’s where the rubber meets the road. Human beings, as a natural course, give birth to people who are disabled at birth. Disability is a normal human condition.
In the past, parents of disabled children had little choice about how to care for their beloved child in situations of hardship. Children were institutionalized, at best. At worst, the children were murdered or left to die of their disabilities.
The care of a child necessarily continues into hir adulthood. If we end social support for the parents of disabled children, we already know that some outcomes follow. Among these are: 1) the exposure of children after birth, 2) negligent or reckless care of the disabled child, 3) emotional, physical, and sexual abuse of the disabled child, 4) economic exploitation, 5) medical neglect, 6) emotional neglect, 7) falling birthrates 8) emotional harm to siblings.
Families of disabled children deserve our utmost support for all of these reasons and more. Is the “Honorable” Charles Schumer advocating that we abandon this social compact? That’s a bad thing.
Another really bad idea is handing the management of these funds to the private sector for their economic enrichment.
This cost is one that we as the richest country on earth (more or less) can easily bear. It is a risk that we all share because we are human. Spreading it out via reasonable taxation isn’t much to ask to retain a civilized and humane society.
1. http://news.wbfo.org/post/schumer-pushes-tax-free-accounts-people-disabilities
2. “expanding market share” is a euphemism for the constant need for growth endemic to capitalism. It’s like an incurable disease in that way. A better option is the Steady State Economy. Learn more at http://steadystate.org/ or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steady_state_economy.
