blind_html [Fwd: !!!ALERT!!!--The Stimulus News is In--Older Blind and Education Advocacy Pays Off!!]
- From: Nimer <nimerjaber1@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: blind_html@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2009 10:31:56 -0700
Excellent!
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: !!!ALERT!!!--The Stimulus News is In--Older Blind and
Education Advocacy Pays Off!!
Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2009 12:38:15 -0500
From: AFB DirectConnect <blemoine@xxxxxxx>
To: AFB Subscriber <afbweb@xxxxxxx>
AFB DirectConnect Letterhead
*!!!ALERT!!!--The Stimulus News is In--Older Blind and Education
Advocacy Pays Off!!
*
For further information, contact:
Mark Richert
Director, Public Policy, AFB
(202) 822-0833
mrichert@xxxxxxx <mailto:mrichert@xxxxxxx>
*Details of the massive economic stimulus package agreed to by House and
Senate negotiators have been released.*
Specific reference to spending for independent living services to older
individuals who are blind remains in the package. The agreement does
lower the spending amount originally proposed in the House version from
$50.6 million to $34.3 million, which is in keeping with the trimming of
federal stimulus spending that the conference agreement makes available
to similarly situated programs generally.
For example, the approximately $13 billion that both chambers proposed
to spend on state grants under the Individuals with Disabilities
Education Act (IDEA) was reduced in the conference agreement to $12.2
billion. While the lower spending amount approved is not as generous as
originally proposed, the fact that specific authority remains for the
older blind program by name in the conference agreement should ensure
the availability of all of those dollars in a way that the Senate bill
would not have achieved.
In addition, the offensive language in the Senate version of the
stimulus bill that would have given the Secretary of Education
considerable additional authority to redirect special education dollars
to unrelated purposes was not included in the agreed-to package.
Given the fast pace of the legislative process and the detailed nature
of these issues, maintaining the specific reference to Chapter 2
services and rolling back an effort to give wider latitude to governors
to use IDEA dollars for other purposes is significant success. Special
thanks are in order to all who made time to contact Congress to
communicate the concerns of our field, particularly the many individual
agency and consumer leaders who reached out to AFB and worked with us.
Additional details about the landmark stimulus legislation and its
impact on other issues of concern to people with vision loss will be
shared with readers soon.
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