Senators’ actions, not words, reveal their priorities

This editorial was published by the Post Register of Idaho Falls.

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As the Idaho Council on Developmental Disabilities has sought to protect home and community-based services — Medicaid-funded occupational therapy, in-home assistance and other services that allow people with disabilities to live independent lives — Idaho’s Senate delegation has been remarkably neglectful.

The HEROS Act, passed by the House, provides supplemental funding for those services to protect them as cash-strapped states with balanced-budget requirements look to make cuts. The HEALS Act, currently in Sen. Mike Crapo’s Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, contains none. If Crapo or Sen. Jim Risch plan to do anything, they’re being quiet about it.

Crapo, at least, has said he supports the services in general terms — though legislation is the only thing that matters. Risch hasn’t even bothered to issue a platitude.

When the mother of a 14-year-old disabled child wrote to Risch asking him to support increased funding, she received what looks like a form letter in return, one that has nothing to do with the concerns of the disabled community.

“As Congress works to establish funding levels for the future, it is important to rein in federal spending. I recognize hundreds of thousands of hardworking Idahoans could be directly and indirectly affected as well as the many good and well-intentioned programs they care about,” Risch wrote in a curious response.

Both Risch and Crapo have shown a sudden new interest in debt and deficits as a second coronavirus aid package is debated.

Why is it necessary to rein in the deficit now, when Risch and Crapo have shown no interest in doing so for the last four years? During the last year of the Obama administration, the deficit was $485 billion. In 2019, after three years when Crapo and Risch were in the majority (but before the impact of the coronavirus), it was $984 billion.

Both Crapo and Risch supported the 2017 tax cut, which Congressional Budget Office estimates indicate increased the annual deficit by about 28 percent, with most of the tax benefits going to the wealthy and corporate shareholders. So when it comes to taxes on the banks that fund Crapo’s campaigns or the defense contractors that fund Risch’s, deficits don’t matter. But when it comes to allowing the disabled to live ordinary lives outside the confines of an institution, suddenly deficits are a top concern again.

Further, institutionalization is a far more expensive way to provide care for people with disabilities. If additional support for home and community-based services is not provided, it would be necessary to have even more government spending — presumably, the plan is not to let people with disabilities die in the streets.

It really doesn’t matter how often Risch and Crapo issue hollow statements warning of deficits or expressing support for those with disabilities.

The best test of a politician’s priorities isn’t his carefully crafted words but his actions. So what their newfound deficit hawkishness shows is that they care a lot about corporate profits, but when it comes to basic services for their constituents with disabilities, they just don’t have the time to think about it.

These are their revealed priorities.

The only way they can reveal different priorities is through action.