News
Presidential Candidate, Wesley Clark, on Disability
Wesley Clark
RESPONSE TO UCP’s DISABILITY RELATED QUESTIONS
TO PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES
- UCP: Do you have individuals with disabilities actively involved in your campaign?
Clark: I am fortunate to have the assistance of many talented individuals with disabilities on my campaign, and I am grateful for their efforts on my behalf. Jonathan Young, Ph.D., who President Clinton appointed as the first-ever person with a disability to serve as a full-time White House liaison to the disability community in 1998, is chairing our political outreach efforts to the disability community. Tom Roome, who has a master’s degree in rehabilitation, is the webmaster of Disabled Americans for Clark. Sherri Brown has been volunteering full-time in my Little Rock headquarters for months, providing vital administrative support. A disabled veteran, Cris Hernandez, chairs my veterans outreach efforts in Arizona. David Paterson, the Minority Leader of the New York State Senate and the highest-ranking African American elected official in his state, has endorsed my candidacy. He has long been a passionate advocate of the disability community, and he has agreed to play a leading role in this respect in my campaign.
Supported by many passionate disability advocates, I am determined to ensure that the disability community continues to be represented throughout my campaign.
UCP: Are your campaign events accessible?
Clark: Yes. In cooperation with supporters with extensive experience in advocacy and public policy, my campaign has developed accessibility guidelines and distributed them to all Clark for President staff responsible for planning and executing events across the country. These guidelines are posted on my website at www.clark04.com.
UCP: Do you have campaign staff to address disability issues?
Clark: Yes. One full-time staffer is responsible for coordinating the various levels of our outreach efforts in my Little Rock campaign headquarters.
- UCP: How will you recruit qualified individuals with disabilities to be part of your Administration? How will your Administration coordinate disability policy?
Clark: My Administration will reflect the diversity of my supporter base, which itself reflects the diversity of America. One of the most important things I learned during my service in the Army is that a strong team embraces diversity and uses the different interests, backgrounds, and abilities of its members to their fullest potential. I am committed to building the strongest leadership team possible—one that will include people with disabilities representing the diversity of the disability community. As President, I will work in cooperation with the advocacy community to ensure the development of policies that protect the rights, safeguard the choices, and expand the opportunities of individuals with disabilities.
- UCP: What will you do in the first 100 days of your Administration to signal to the disability community that you consider us a core constituency and that your Administration intends to work with us to improve the lives of 54 million children and adults with disabilities in the U.S.?
Clark: I have posted an extensive agenda for people with disabilities on my website (www.clark04.com), and I intend to work toward its implementation from the first day of my Administration. I will block efforts to impose delays in ADA compliance enforcement actions. I will appoint an Attorney General and a Chair of the EEOC who are committed to enforcing the ADA, and I will work to fully fund their efforts to do so. Other elements of my agenda are addressed in the questions below, and I plan to act on these priorities as soon as I take the oath of office. To ensure open lines of communication, I will re-establish the position of White House liaison to the disabilities community, which President Bush has failed to do.
- UCP: What are your views on recent Supreme Court decisions involving the Americans with Disabilities Act? Do you support legislation amending the Americans with Disabilities Act, and if so, in what ways? What criteria will you consider when you nominate justices to the Federal courts?
Clark: Over the past three years, the basic rights and liberties the ADA protects have been under siege. President Bush entered office promising to attack "the barriers to equality that face many of the 54 million Americans with disabilities." But he has done just the opposite. Although it was his father who signed the ADA into law, President Bush has winnowed away many of our hard-won gains by appointing judges who want to limit the ADA, and by weakening government monitoring and enforcement of the ADA.
As president, I would propose an Americans with Disabilities Restoration Act to reverse the erosion of the ADA by reinstating the originally intended definitions of disability and reasonable accommodation, which the Supreme Court has persistently whittled away. I believe that lawyers and judges should be appointed to the federal bench who will uphold the law, including the ADA, without imposing their personal ideology on it.
- UCP: As the country faces budget deficits for at least the next few years, do you believe entitlement programs, such as Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security, should be revisited, and if so, how? How will you ensure the solvency of these programs?
Clark: I strongly believe that Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare are three of the government’s most important programs. For 20 percent of elderly beneficiaries, Social Security represents their only source of income. The program faces a long-term deficit that must be addressed. As President I would work in a bipartisan way to save Social Security—not by ending it as we know it, but by putting it on sure financial footing. My plan to save $2.35 trillion over the next ten years and reduce the deficit every year is a first step in the right direction. Putting America on a course for more fiscal responsibility in the future is good for the economy and crucial to ensure that America meets its obligations in the future. That’s why I am going to call on Congress to pay for any new tax and spending proposals, streamline government by cutting unnecessary and wasteful spending, end corporate welfare by closing corporate loopholes, and recapture revenue from the provisions of Bush’s tax giveaways for the wealthy. There are several options to extend the life of Social Security while fully protecting America’s workers, senior citizens, and people with disabilities. I am also committed to building on the foundation of the Ticket to Work and Work Incentives Improvement Act of 1999 to ensure that people with disabilities are not punished for choosing to work. The need for health care should not stand in the way of Americans pursuing gainful employment.
- UCP: What are some of the greatest health care and long-term support challenges facing individuals with disabilities in this country, and how will you address them?
Clark: First, I will work to repair the damage done by the Bush administration’s prescription drug plan. The new law favors people in good health over people with disabilities and the private sector over the public trust. Millions of people with disabilities stand to lose access to medications. I will work to fix the new law to protect people with disabilities.
I will also advocate for the passage of the Family Opportunity Act. Parents with children who require complex medical care should not have to turn down better paying jobs to protect their Medicaid coverage, which is essential for paying for the health care needs of their children. The health and education of children need to be our top national priority, and this legislation will provide relief to families of children with severe disabilities.
To ensure better options for long-term care, I support passage of the Medicaid Community Attendant Services and Supports Act (MiCASSA). No one should be forced into an institutional setting based solely on the need for personal attendant services. We must give senior citizens and people with disabilities choices by providing them with access to home and community based care.
I plan to make sure that affordable health care is available to everyone. My health care plan, which is posted at www.clark04.com, will provide health insurance for everyone under 22.
- UCP: What are some of the challenges facing the Medicaid program, and how will you address them? Does the Medicaid system need reform, and if so, how would you propose to reform it?
Clark: To make health care work, we must protect Medicaid. Medicaid provides important health care and independence for millions of children and adults with disabilities. I oppose turning Medicaid into a block grant to states. State and local governments are facing their worst fiscal crisis in decades. This fiscal crunch has hurt the economy and working families and forced states to make choices to cut much-needed programs like Medicaid. That’s why my first major policy initiative, my job’s plan, includes a proposal for a $40 billion state and local tax rebate fund to lessen the need for states and local governments to cut critical expenditures in state health care programs such as Medicaid.
- UCP: Given the great fiscal constraints on states and local school districts around the country, how will you improve educational opportunities for children with disabilities? How will your Department of Education ensure compliance with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, IDEA? Do you believe IDEA needs to be strengthened, and if so, how?
Clark: My proposal for a $40 billion state and local tax rebate fund is also designed to free up funds for investment in our educational system, including opportunities for children with disabilities. I will work to fully fund the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act in order to relieve the pressure on cash-strapped states without placing additional burdens on the families of children with disabilities. In cooperation with Congress and the disability community, I will seek to enhance the accessibility of postsecondary education for all students.
Adequate education is essential for all Americans, and crucial for individuals with disabilities if we are going to improve the high rates of underemployment and unemployment among people with disabilities. We should strengthen IDEA by making it simpler and easier for parents and schools systems to work together to implement the Individualized Education Plans that ensure adequate education for students with disabilities. We can also strengthen IDEA by enhancing early intervention programs, making it easier for parents to navigate the due process system, and focusing more on preparing students for the transition from school to gainful employment.
- UCP: How will your Administration address the astoundingly high unemployment rate for people with disabilities?
Clark: Tony Coelho, the former Congressman and an author of the ADA, has issued a challenge to all candidates to promote an agenda that champions the rights of Americans with disabilities to work. I have gladly accepted the challenge.
To encourage employment for people with disabilities, I will first institute appropriate hiring practices within my own administration, implement President Clinton’s executive order calling for 100,000 more disabled employees in federal government service, and change federal contracting practices. I pledge that individuals with disabilities will be well represented both in and by my administration. I will also eliminate penalties for working people with disabilities. I will reform programs so that disabled people do not lose health care or social security benefits when they earn income through work, and abolish the Disabled Veterans Tax, which similarly penalizes disabled American veterans who earn retirement benefits through non-military employment.
- UCP: How will your Administration ensure that people with disabilities have access to decent, safe, affordable and accessible housing in the community through HUD programs?
Clark: There is a severe shortage of housing that is safe, accessible, and affordable for people with disabilities. Improving this situation is critical, because unless people with disabilities have decent places to live, our efforts to increase the employment of people with disabilities will be undermined. Improving our housing infrastructure includes increasing support for the Section 8 voucher program to broaden access for non-elderly persons with disabilities, as well as Section 811 for people with severe disabilities; increasing production of affordable housing, and housing visitability.
- UCP: How will your Administration establish ongoing dialogue with the disability community?
Clark: President Bill Clinton demonstrated his commitment to the disability community when he created the full-time position of a White House liaison to the disability community. President Bush sent the opposite signal when he failed to fill the post. As President, I will have a full-time aide on staff to keep me in touch with Americans with disabilities and to represent their concerns in the deliberations of my Administration. I will ensure that my administration does more than simply pay lip service to a disability agenda; I will act on disability community priorities and ensure that the concerns of people with disabilities are integrated into my domestic policy priorities.