It has been a month since Gov. Parris Glendening proposed eliminating the $35 million Disability Assistance and Loan Program (DALP) and its $13 million companion health care program. Except for efforts to restore partial medical coverage for DALP recipients, the contingency plan promised by the governor to ease the pain of these cuts seems to have been forgotten. Carolyn Davis, a deputy chief of staff, told a Senate panel this week the governor at this stage has no specific plan in mind and will spend no money to implement any plan.
Among the $240 million in budget cuts proposed by Governor Glendening, the DALP savings can't be dismissed as small potatoes. But if the budgetmeisters total up the hidden costs these cuts would impose, it's hard to see how they would justify them. The governor referred to DALP as a "Maryland state-only welfare program," but that dry description does not reflect its role as a last-chance safety net for some of our most destitute citizens.
Advocates for the poor, not surprisingly, paint a grim picture of the consequences of killing DALP -- more homeless panhandlers, more hungry people outside soup kitchens, more non-paying patients at hospital emergency rooms. Yet some state officials say anecdotal evidence supports these contentions, and that cutting these payments could shift costs to other programs and to private charities, which are already severely strained. Recipients depend on the $157 monthly payments as the last few threads that help them hold together some semblance of a normal life.
Although we support the governor's priorities -- jobs, schools and public safety -- this flap illustrates that not everything fits into neat categories. DALP recipients probably won't benefit from the governor's goal of a robust job market -- they are, by definition, people whose ability to work is hindered by a disability. Most of these people can't sustain self-sufficiency without some aid.
Cutting DALP may prove that Governor Glendening is no bleeding-heart liberal, but it casts doubt on his vaunted ability to tell the difference between wise budget cuts and those that do more harm than good. That impression is only heightened by the admitted lack of attention to contingency plans for recipients who could truly be harmed if these cuts go into effect.