ADA is 25 Years Old

I remember when I was a kid how difficult it was for disabled people to move about. People in a wheelchair then, for example, had little access to even enter a building. There was no disabled ramp. And the blind were almost alone. Their dog helpers were barred from just about everywhere. Society pretended the disabled didn't exist. But twenty five years ago this month the United States Congress passed the Americans with Disabilities Act that made it illegal  for governments to discriminate or not accommodate those with disabilities. ADA disabilities include both mental and physical medical conditions. A condition does not need to be severe or permanent to be a disability. What a great law for the disabled.

Well, given that there are over 50 million Americans who qualify under the act,  it's so god that it might remind us what government should do. Government used to help people, but today it seems to pass laws that people want in exchange for political support. So politicians, President Obama being the extreme example, create programs that are not needed but  that appeal to voters, who in turn support the program backers in return for the freebies given. The ADA was unquestionably needed and beneficial. But perhaps the voters should demand that politicians look at it as a reminder of what they should and should not support when asked to vote for approval or disapproval.

The Heritage Foundation categorizes wasteful entitlement programs as those that g fir into one of six categories. It says that the six categories of wasteful and unnecessary spending are: Programs that should be devolved to state and local governments;Programs that could be better performed by the private sector;Mistargeted programs whose recipients should not be entitled to government benefits;Outdated and unnecessary programs;Duplicative programs; and Inefficiency, mismanagement, and fraud.

There are now so many entitlement programs, some targeted to narrow voting constituencies, that if just those were eliminated a significant portion of the national debt could be wiped out. Yet no politician would dare to vote for such an abolition. We are now locked into the anti ADA act phase, where bad, wasteful and corrupt programs are created for votes while there is no room for creating needed ones. In a sense, I think that this makes all Americans disabled too.