Don’t Blame Welfare Abuse on Disabled

* As a parent of two adult sons who have disabilities and an advocate for disabled rights, I am compelled to clarify for our taxpayers the impact of cuts in welfare payments upon persons who cannot work and thus depend upon SSI benefits to live (Letters, Aug. 13).

Our government chooses not to make a distinction between “working-able” welfare recipients and those who are precluded from working by virtue of age and/or disability. In reforming welfare, elderly and disabled persons are victimized by annual cuts in their “income.” This year, the state knocked down SSI benefits by 5% in Orange County, from $614 per month to $584 per month. This is not extra income; it is the only income from which elderly and disabled persons are expected to buy food, pay rent, and simply exist.

Before any taxpayer complains about the out-of-control, fraud-fraught, overused welfare system, my sons and I would ask you to consider these facts.

Your state legislators just awarded themselves a tax-exempt expense account of $109 per day. Your governor employs 755 personally selected political appointees at a taxpayer cost of $53 million. That translates into an average annual income of more than $70,000 per appointee.

Your county supervisors, who spiraled us into a sinking fiscal quagmire, receive more than $80,000 per year in salary. Their expense accounts are $7,500 each, or $500 more a year than an SSI beneficiary receives as a “living” income.

These are your tax dollars at work: Public servants feasting off of the public trough, while our most vulnerable and fragile citizens struggle to survive.

The next time taxpayers are hunting for the real waste, we suggest stopping by the office of an elected official.

ROSLYN HOWARD

Fullerton