Two Senators Ask Administration to Remove Disability Cuts in Proposed Fed Budget

U.S. Senators Bob Casey (D-PA) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH) wrote a letter to Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Mick Mulvaney, asking the White House to review its proposed FY20 budget for any cuts to disability programs and restore that funding. As ANCOR has mentioned before, the Presidential budget proposal does not carry the force of law, as Congress sets the federal budget, deciding what can be funded (authorization), and by how much (appropriations). However, the federal budget is an important signal from the Administration on what it plans to focus on within its agencies, outside of Congress.

As written in the letter:

“We write to address a pernicious theme in the Trump Administration’s Fiscal Year 2020 (FY20) Budget: across multiple agencies and offices, the budget targets people with disabilities. Whether in housing, education, employment, aging, health care, civil rights, transportation, research or any of the other governmental functions that assist people with disabilities and their families, this budget strips the resources that make access and opportunity possible. Any budget proposal by any administration should reflect the goals of the Americans with Disabilities Act: equal opportunity, independent living, full participation, and economic self-sufficiency. Your budget not only doesn’t reflect those goals, it actively inhibits their achievement. 

In the Trump Administration’s FY20 budget you have cut funding to:

•            the Traumatic Brain Injury program

•            the Paralysis Resource Center

•            the state Council on Developmental Disabilities

•            the University Centers on Developmental Disabilities

•            the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research

•            the Independent Living Centers

•            the Limb Loss Resource Center

•            Gallaudet University

•            the Voting Access for People with Disabilities program

•            the state Assistive Technology programs

•            the Family Caregiver Support Services program

•            the Native American Caregiver Support Services program

•            the Alzheimer’s Disease program

•            the Lifespan Respite Care program

•            the Autism Surveillance program

•            the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee

•            the Office of Disability Employment Policy

•            Section 811 Housing for Persons with Disabilities

[…]

We are concerned about all of these cuts to disability programs, but none more so that the proposed cut to Social Security Disability Insurance and Medicaid.

[…]

The proposed cuts to Medicaid, $1.5 trillion over ten years, would break that contract with Americans and leave hundreds of thousands of children, older adults, and people with disabilities without the health care and long-term services and supports they need to be part of our society.”