Would not get hung up on getting everybody to enter a disability questionnaire. Whether it is getting trump or governors and senators to do it. It is important but what i think it is far more important the three and a half years or maybe its only two where we are not in an election cycle and youre working with the legislative system and others to enact policy. I dont think it matters if youre doing the right thing, if you are effective in lobbying congress at the state legislature level, i dont like its crucial that it was a top of the List Campaign issue in order to get action on a policy issue during those brief periods s issue during those brief periods of time when were not running another campaign. One other thing i would just mention, and that is, when it comes to issues like ssi and the like, it hasnt been brought up but its always the case that there is a push back, and this gets to the issue of funding, from certain elements in politics and government who think that those programs are abused and they are abused not by the types of people with disabilities that we are all here talking about and trying to represent, but by people who claim their back got tweaked and now they want 30 years of ssdi payments, and im not trying to color that situation. Im sure some of those are legitimate but there are people in government who think those programs are overrun by folks who are claiming physical disabilities from an accident that is not severe enough and their interests, these government officials interest is cutting back on those programs being abused, and i think it is something we need to be aware of. Thank you. Normal maker, and then we will go to questions. My wife has been some time, she is a lawyer doing pro bono work helping people with Mental Illness get on disability. These these are people people who have the least ability to fill out the forms. If you dont fill out the forms exactly right, you are denied and if you appeal it can take years before they hear your appeal. A substantial number of Homeless People are those with serious Mental Illnesses who should be on disability, who deserve to be on disability but they simply are not capable of handling those forms themselves. Thats an issue that really needs a lot of additional attention. There are some jurisdictions in the courts where they have actually trained people to help those individuals get on, when they fill out the forms, they get it immediately. Are brought here, there is no question. There are also issues of accessibility that are really serious once. Thank you. Now we turn to the crowd and there is a microphone. I ask you to use the microphone. If you can just go toward the microphone or maybe pull it down so its more assessable. Please e. Please identify yourself before you ask your question. Im with the American Association on health and disability. My question is whether or not, based on the comments you are making, whether you think there has been a shift in the Disability Community as to the partisanship, specifically disabilities being a partisan issue and it was uniquely by both sides and both sides wanted it, many of you may come as about that. Specifically with the politicalization of the Affordable Care act and what that means for people with disabilities and the extra rights they been able to get as a result of the aca, whether that is sort of causing a shift in the way the disability vote is going to go forward. I say that as someone who grew up in a republican home and its hard for me now to see myself voting for republicans based on their positions on health care because they say repeal and replace but never provide any details as to what that means for someone like me. I would say, i was with my friend bob dole a little while ago and bob was telling the story of what was the lowest moment other than losing the , white house, in his political career which was being on the floor of the senate and watching his republican colleagues vote against the International Disability convention. Then they all came up to them afterwards and said how much they loved him. That was a pivotal moment, i think. Its a story more about how outside forces, the social media and the new tribal media have tended to dominate on a lot of these issues. At the same time the fiscal questions the ones that i , mentioned earlier have become even more important. The fact is to deal with a lot of these issues, the ones the ones that rich mentioned which are hugely important ones of housing for people, you need money. If everything gets caught in a vice, that is how are you going to do a pay for and you keep most of the pay force off of the table entirely which is partisan now, then you are going to be stuck and then you get to the question also that rich mentioned that you want to blow up all regulations, that creates another set of issues. Now everything is trouble. President george hw bush, basically as the father of the americans with disability act and it was hugely bipartisan and seen as a great asset among republicans. Todays republicans, they sort of resent what they see as expanding rights for everybody but thems i think a lot of people wouldnt identify necessarily with the Disability Community unless they themselves are part of it and then they would see themselves as deserving. Overall they just oppose the expansion of rights and they see the programs as expansion of government. We have had now, decades of Big Government, we want to shrink government. I think the kinds of progress that we identify with and think should continue gets sacrificed through all this rhetoric. The libertarian ticket echoes it as well. We have to shrink government. I i think there could be a case made for more government in these areas that will pay off and thats another thing i think the Disability Rights Community can do and that is to make some equations where if you spend this or have this program, the benefits that you get in productivity or reduced reliance on government, i think it pays off so i think making the case on economic grounds is something that should be done. I have to jump on top of that because i just completely agree with you. Our organization thinks the governor who is going to get an award from us later has met with 43 of the governors and weve seen such excitement by the republican governors around the employment with people with disabilities. I will give you a very specific example. In dakota, you have governor do gart at both of his parents were death. Death. Deaf. He was raised in a household with two parents who were hearingimpaired. They use sign language and he saw they worked hard on the farm, they worked hard in their business and they were enormously bright and successful and as governor he has created so much opportunity that 50 of people with disabilities in his state have a job. Scott walker, not known to be a Big Government guy, scott walker is the governor of wisconsin, not known to be a big spender. He has every single month, gone , to a different private sector employer in his state to hire people with disabilities where its working out well for the employers and showcase how it is helping their companies. Not only that, he has dramatically expanded a program for young people with significant disabilities to enable them to go straight from school into the workplace. They had 12 such sites in the past and other have he is 37. Getting an almost 80 employment outcome for these young people with disabilities and it is saving a fortune. These individuals otherwise would spend their entire lives sitting on their parents couch until their parents die and then their brothers couch, living on government benefits. Because he is really invested in this, he has saved a fortune for the taxpayers. One problem that we see is what people call wrong pockets. When he saves the money, he invests in the job training and Transition Program for the youth with the disability. Who saves the money . The feds, not the state. Its been sort of an issue on how do you incentivize the right people because if the governors can really fix this but theyre not properly incentivized by getting the costsaving because its the fed to get the cost savings, weve seen other governors less enthusiastic who have said, government benefits for people with disabilities in West Virginia and kentucky is good for our state. Thats our job program. You go to walmart the day those checks arrive in everybodys buying their beer and guns with disability checks. A lot of it has to do with the attitude that theyre bringing but there are huge cost savings that can be absolutely achieved with proper policy on this. Thank you for your question. Do we have other questions from the audience . While shes getting there if i could say one thing about the question that was just raised and i think that is, i think its fine if folks with disabilities are being swayed more by one party than the other given obamacare or given what a couple of us have already referred to in terms of what the republican president ial candidate is doing. I think thats fine in the privacy of the voting booth. I dont think its great if the Disability Community chooses to become identified with one party versus the other because then that would encourage these republican governors and republican legislatures and there are more than a majority of them to think, disability, thats a liberal democratic issue, im not going to invest much of my time or energy in it. I think the Disability Community will be hugely dependent on republican state legislatures and governors. Officially staying somewhat neutral even if in the privacy of the booth this round of votes are going to democrats, i would urge that it not succumb to we are a onesided lobby. Thank you so much all. I was i have read many of your pc throughout the years. Thank you for coming today. My name is sue and i run a nonpartisan firm to bring voting issues to the public. I work in new york state. I have penetrates in journalism and ive never worked as a journalist. When youre talking about bringing the issues to the forefront and youre talking about a gap of knowledge from journalists to the people like me who have been in the field 30 years and i have very compelling controversial stories, but i am feeling a gap in how to go about getting the stories i know to the public to get to editors and publishers interested or writing for myself. I feel like i could use some advice because there are some amazingly compelling stories that would get attention if handled in the correct way. You want to know where to start your story . If i knew i would not tell you. I would keep it to myself. Though, i think our main concern here, the big question is how do we get our message out how does the movement get its message out . First of all, look to those journalists and media that are already picking up on stories like yours, like the one that
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