Amendment 50 - Colorado's Community Colleges on the Slippery Slope

Colorado's Amendment 50, a ballot initiative that ties casinos to community colleges, is making me call into question the level of education of community college leaders in this state. They have tied their buggy to the casino industry - a very dangerous and slippery slope.

Amendment 50 would allow our casino towns to make changes in limited stakes betting so that people can bet more money. The increases in profits the casinos receive is supposed to go, in part, to community colleges. Community colleges apparantly don't know that raising the gambling stakes also raises the incidence of problem and compulsive gambling.

Is this what we want our educational system tied to?

Vote No on Amendment 50. Colorado does not need to create more problem gambling.

"The Socialists are Taking Over"

Today I saw the clip of the man at the McCain rally who is very angry because, as he says, "the socialists are taking over."

Phew, am I glad to hear that! It's about time!

We know where we have gotten in the last 8 years. Free market - tanked. Remember the old plan to "privatize social security" by having people invest their own money? Hmmm, isn't it a good thing today that this did not happen? Did you benefit greatly from the "trickle down" method of economics?

So what does a country look like when we are all in it together? Ideally, it is a country where no child or person is hungry or uneducated. It is a place where people with disabilities have the care they need. It is a place where grandma can live in an assisted living facility instead of a nursing home. It is a place where education is fully funded and we create the best scholars in the world. It is a place where everyone who is able is working. It is a place where those in the upper 1% of the income bracket don't have all the power. A place where everyone has healthcare. And yes, it is a place where people from other countries are treated with respect and dignity rather than being vilified as "aliens."

Socialism is taking over? Bring it on!

Fuzzy Math

I have been having a recent exchange of words with a mother of a child with a disability who believes with all her heart that the government should not be supporting people with disabilities. She believes, bless her heart, that every family should raise their own money to support the needs of their children.

This, however, is fuzzy math and an extremely naive approach.

The cost of caring for an adult with a disability who needs 24 hour care is somewhere in the range of $50-$75,000 annually. Not only is this more than some families make in a year, if we had to rely on each family doing fundraisers to the tune of $75K a year, our friends and family would get extremely tired of us asking them for money every year. It just cannot be done by an individual this way. It is a full-time job to be a fundraiser. Furthermore, without a system in place to oversee and recruit service providers, the cost would go up for care because providers would have to develop complicated mechanisms to serve each family.

It is beyond naive to think that families are able to take on this monumental task. Those who think otherwise are not in this situation and do not understand how difficult this is. While some families are able to band together to create solutions for their children, so many cannot.

This kind of thinking is going to put us back in the dark ages... when people with disabilities were supported by sitting on street corners begging for money. At some point, I hope people are going to figure this out and stop this endless debate about whether or not our country is about equality for everyone - including economic equality - or not.