Happy New Year?

The world’s many dichotomies intrigue me. We see them everywhere, in the nooks and crannies of our neighborhoods, our communities, even in our own lives. I’m struck by their impacts on our lives, perhaps moreso as I sit and listen to Dylan belt out, “the times they are a-changin'”, written more than 60 years ago, a seeming lifetime ago. Times are indeed changing, even as it often feels that we’re a bit stuck, even moving backwards. As I enter the year in which I will myself cross 60 years on the planet, I’m perhaps more aware of the simultaneity of progress and regression, of the tensions created out of our want to progress and advance and grow, even as we experience troubling steps backwards, an unwelcome and inadvertent trip in our time machine to days gone by, days better left in the past.

Not an especially optimistic opening to the blog, is it? Stay with me.

In recent days, we learned that Maryland Governor Wes Moore, an eminently likeable, honorable public servant, has proposed a budget that cuts funding to intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) services and supports of between (gulp) $175,000,000 and $200,000,000. Yes, you read that right. $175 to $200 million dollars. Not over the next five or ten years, but effective as early as April this year. It’s hard to know what to even say. I’ve used hyperbole to describe cuts that will directly, without equivocation, devastate Marylanders with IDD. Outrageous. Astonishing. Crushing.

Perhaps more debilitating, at least for me, is that for all the progress made over the past 10 or so years, where Maryland has led the nation in putting its money where its mouth is when supporting Marylanders with IDD, is wiped out. Eradicated. A glance at my calendar assures me it’s the 21st Century. At the same time, this otherwise popular, progressive Governor will, with one swipe, put IDD supports in Maryland into a time machine and deposit them into a time gone by, a time when we talked a good game, but we NEVER actually invested in that game. Whatever you might think of President Joe Biden, he once said, “Show me where you spend your money, and I’ll show you your priorities.” The Maryland budget is in trouble, yes. As a state, we face a whopping $2.7 billion (with a B) budget deficit, but perhaps someone can tell me why, if IDD system cuts are to be $200 million, Marylanders with IDD and their families should have to shoulder 7.4% of that deficit when they make up less than 2.5% of the State’s population.

It’s 2025. Why are we still looking to people with IDD first when it comes to cuts? Why do we regard people with IDD and their families as so unworthy, so undeserving of government assistance. Why are we still having to fight for every cent, every centimeter? Seems to me this song is on constant repeat—when cuts are needed, look to people with disabilities first. The times they are a-changing? I think not.

Perhaps coincidentally, we recently inaugurated a new/re-new President of the United States. We are witness to one of the erstwhile miracles of American democracies in the peaceful transition of power on Inauguration Day. It’s a day of renewal, of a new start, and it has frequently been, in the past, a day of hope, on which we embrace the great potential of new leadership and new opportunity.

In 1985, President Ronald Reagan offered that ours “is the American sound. It is hopeful, big-hearted, idealistic, daring, decent, and fair. That’s our heritage, that’s our song. We sing it still.” That, friends, regardless of our politics, is poetic, inspiring. In 1993, President Bill Clinton offered this: “In serving, we recognize a simple but powerful truth: We need each other and we must care for one another. Today, we do more than celebrate America, we rededicate ourselves to the very idea of America.” Hell, even President Richard Nixon reminded us that “when we listen to ‘the better angels of our nature,’ we find that they celebrate the simple things, the basic things — such as goodness, decency, love, kindness.”

All aspirational. All meant to stretch us to our highest ideals. Decency, love, kindness, honor, service, fairness.

So, what to make of stated policy plans by the incoming Trump Administration that will decimate Medicaid, on which 60% of Americans with IDD rely for both healthcare and long term services and supports (exactly the sort provided by Makom)? What of immigration policy so-called reforms that threaten the stability of Makom’s workforce, 90% of which are working legally in the US but were not born here? How shall Makom respond to their fear, their panic at having been demonized, their uncertainty in being able to remain here in the US, let alone part of the Makom family?

In 2025, we have well and truly forgotten the core beliefs of our founding as a nation nearly 250 years ago. President Reagan, in January 1989—36 years ago this month, offered this:

“While other countries cling to the stale past, here in America we breathe life into dreams. We create the future, and the world follows us into tomorrow. Thanks to each wave of new arrivals to this land of opportunity, we’re a nation forever young, forever bursting with energy and new ideas, and always on the cutting edge, always leading the world to the next frontier. This quality is vital to our future as a nation. If we ever closed the door to new Americans, our leadership in the world would soon be lost.

They give more than they receive. They labor and succeed. And often they are entrepreneurs. But their greatest contribution is more than economic, because they understand in a special way how glorious it is to be an American. They renew our pride and gratitude in the United States of America, the greatest, freest nation in the world — the last, best hope of man on Earth.”

As for Medicaid and plans to ‘Block Grant’ Medicaid, add work requirements, and other such publicly stated plans, it’s hard to comprehend how, in a just, decent, modern civilization, we ask Americans with IDD to shoulder such a disproportionally higher toll. There are around 8.1 million Americans with IDD. As above, around 60% of them rely on Medicaid for their healthcare and long-term services and supports (LTSS). That’s about 4.9 million. That’s 1.4% of Americans. Yet, when Medicaid changes like those coming are implemented, they impact Americans with IDD in a wildly disproportionate and absolutely crushing way. And once more, people with IDD and their families take it right between the eyes.

With Inauguration Day behind us, how many Executive Orders will be issued, how many policies immediately be enacted? How much research or impact analyses will be performed on how this effects people with IDD and their families before scoring essentially political points? Will we be measured and thoughtful as an expression of our highest ideals, or will we fall guilty yet once more to our growing propensity to ‘Ready, Shoot, Aim’ approach to quick wins that resonate inside our echo chambers?

You needn’t check the calendar to confirm it. This is the 21st Century. It just doesn’t feel especially 21st Century these days. Perhaps more precisely stated, it doesn’t feel very 21st Century for people with IDD, their families, and those of us who have the privilege of working with and walking alongside them in their pursuit of quality lives. Instead, in our 21st Century, they and we dodge proverbial bullets that come in the form of cuts to the marrow at the state and federal levels. Oh, and this ain’t partisan. Maryland’s Gov Moore is a card-carrying Democrat, and President Trump is a Republican. I’ve long argued that IDD isn’t a partisan issue, it’s a humanity one. I stand by it, but IDD gets no quarter from Ds or Rs or Is. Cuts needed? IDD. Policy changes? IDD, and implications be damned.

So, into 2025 we speed, struck with a foreboding, a sense of absolute fear of what the future will bring. For the 250 people with IDD supported by Makom and the nearly 500 employees of the organization, all of us together in a magnificent melting pot, all of us singularly focused on the profundity of our work, and our obligations to one another, we look forward to this new year with trepidation. But, we do it clear-eyed and recommitted to fighting for our “hopeful, big-hearted, idealistic, daring, decent, and fair” ideals, envisioned 40 years ago by Ronald Reagan, seemingly farther away from the reach and realities of Americans with IDD 40 years on but no less worthy of our fight.

Happy New Year? Time will tell.

From all of us at Makom, we offer our best wishes, unspoiled by the specter of an uncertain year that promises regression and relentless fear and worry for people with IDD and all of us who commit ourselves to their service, to all of you for a year of good health, of peace, and of love and connection.