Presidential commission bodes ill for people with disabilities – Mike Ervin in “The Progressive”

People who have read the selections in our humor section will already be familiar with Mike Ervin, who writes a bimonthly satire column in New Mobility.

Mike also writes serious pieces of policy, media and cultural analysis.  He’s written many of these as op-eds for the media project at The Progressive.

Mike’s latest piece looks at President Obama’s proposed bipartisan commission on entitlement problems.  He figures – no doubt correctly – that the “common ground” the parties will find entails cutting the supports for poor, disabled and elderly people. 

Here’s the intro for Mike’s op-ed, on the proposed bipartisan commission and what it could mean for people with disabilities:

President Obama’s decision to create a commission on how to cut so-called entitlement programs is ominous news for millions of people with disabilities.

In January, the Senate rejected legislation endorsed by Obama that would have created such a commission.
So in his State of the Union address, the president said he would create a similar “bipartisan fiscal commission” by executive order. Obama stated that his commission will be “modeled” on the one rejected by the Senate.

If his commission is anything like the one that was in the Senate bill, it would pose a serious threat to people with disabilities, seniors and others who rely on programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

Maybe gridlock isn’t such a bad thing after all.

Read the rest of Mike’s essay here.