Please send letter to Congress:

Letter to Congressional Delegation

October 15, 2009

Dear Congress man/woman:

Daily headlines capture the attention of readers about declining state revenues, severe cutbacks in local aid, layoffs in state and municipal workforces, and reduced consumer spending. The headlines and the stories give only occasional play that the state’s fiscal condition has had on the safety nets low-income people rely upon for survival.

We are writing to you to ask you to put a continuation of the federal stimulus funding on the front burner for 2010 and 2011. The U.S. economy’s health cannot recover if fifty state economies continue to restrict spending and reduce growth.

Moreover, the important factor is what happens to people if state economies continue to bleed money, jobs, and services:

Home care services for elders and people with disabilities have been restricted, putting many at risk of going into a nursing home, which have a guaranteed stream of Medicaid funding.

People with disabilities relying on personal care services have their time allocations for toileting, bathing, and dressing cut to satisfy a bureaucratic need to reduce spending.
The service networks built over thirty years to provide non-institutionalized care for people with developmental and intellectual disabilities are broken in key areas, ones that are the linkages that underpin the whole service network: transportation, family support services, and vocational training.

The $1 billion of Federal Medicaid Assistance Percentage monies the Commonwealth applied to the FY10 state budget went a long way to stave off deep spending cuts. However, with the Massachusetts economy still shrinking, the devastation of deep budget cuts is coming within weeks as decreased tax revenues persist.

Renewing and expanding the FMAP stimulus funding is vital and has immediate advantages over construction and other projects. The money can be put to work almost immediately. The multiplier effect of Medicaid spending has been amply documented by leading economists. Finally, it is spent satisfying our national and state goals of “common wealth”.

A representative of our coalition will be calling you shortly to address this issue in person. We trust you will find our message appropriate to carry through the halls of Congress

Signed

Sponsored by www.dpcma.org.