Tim Kaine (Man of Faith) Chooses

I suppose there will be any number of similar stories coming in the months and years ahead, but this one struck a nerve. You see, from 3 years old until I joined the Marine Corps at 17, I lived almost exclusively in foster homes. Cycling through the system, you run into an awful lot of troubled kids. Some of them more so than others, but in the end, they are all kids. And some of them are sick - very sick.

You see, it's extraordinarily difficult providing care to an extremely autistic child. Or an obsessive-compulsive. Or Asperger's. A lot of these kids end up "in the system".

Yesterday a close friend told me (through tears) that Governor Tim Kaine, as a cost-cutting measure, is closing the Commonwealth Center for Children and Adolescents. 200 jobs - nurses, doctors, social workers and staff - will be eliminated.

The CCCA was one of the only in-patient psychiatric hospitals in Virginia. It served practically the entire state. It was a way-station for these kids. They'd stay there for a while, receive a diagnosis and treatment plan, and move on to the next stage - either back home with their family or to a facility or home equipped to take care of them.

Nobody really knows what is going to happen to them now. The staff is scrambling to find a place for existing patients. Of course, they are also probably scrambling to find a job for themselves.

The CCCA affiliated with the University of Virginia's Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Fellowship Program. To be certified as a Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist, a rotation through an in-patient setting is required. The country - especially with its sky-rocketing rates of autism - is suffering through a huge shortage of C&A Psychiatrists. Without this hospital, UVa may have to end its C&A Fellowship Program. The fellows-in-training stand to be left adrift.

Governor Kaine, I'm convinced, chose to close this hospital because kids don't vote. Republicans will stand in the way of any tax increases, so there will simply not be any opportunity to close the budget gap the sane way.

Drive through Northern Virginia sometime. You'll see the posh corporate offices of Lockheed Martin, SAIC, CACI and scores of other war profiteers that have made billions of dollars in the last 8 years. These are the people whose taxes we simply cannot contemplate raising.

So yeah, shit really does roll downhill in bad economic times. Today it's sick children; I'm quite certain that tomorrow it will be food stamp recipients or folks that need help paying to heat their homes.

But it will never be the CEOs, war-profiteers or crooks that looted Wall Street.

Comments

[BBackSoon]

I have a friend here at work that made the statement a while back that he didn’t want the government getting more of his money. We are not wealthy people we are working class stiffs that more or less get by with a little buffer. My argument to him was ‘Do you like to drive on nice roads? Do you want to pay a monthly fee for Police or Fire protection?’ I guess now I will have to ad ‘Do you want troubled people that need help to be living down the road or across the street from you?’

If Repugs really don’t like poor people why do they stop every deal for planned parenthood such as birth control or Abortion? It seems reasonable to me that one of the best things we could do to help would be to offer free birth control and we can argue about abortion later. Or is it poor people must be kept poor?

[sector1463]

This isn't the only place the children will lose in Virginia. The public schools are being threatened in a way that is unthinkable. We have class sizes being increased by 2.5 students. That is an increase that is over the increase last year of .5 students. That means less teachers, less support personnel and less if not the elimination of instructional assistants. This will seriously impact the education our children receive.

The children in this article will be denied services in their schools too. There won't be enough teachers to help them.

Counties need to raise taxes to cover the schools, police and fire departments too.

The cuts because of our financial situation are going to be deep. It is going to take along time for the bleeding to stop.

[ld]

Thank-you for this posting. You're one of the few that has had the courage to contrast luxury afforded the corporate defense contractors with the treatment of lost children. That's our society now - the right wing has coarsened us. $700 billion for failed bankers, no problem, but nearly nothing for kids that are hurting.

I also got bounced around when I was a kid and had to rely on the good hearts of others. I've moved on as best as I can and hope you have also.

[historymatters]

amazingday has it right on about why this facility is closing. The Virginia GOP is so far out on the edge it's a wonder they haven't all fallen off the edge of the flat earth they all believe in. Also just goes to show how that GOP mantra "choose life" only means something right up until a woman gives birth. After that, they don't care about what happens to kids. Especially special needs kids, who are the most vulnerable in our society.

Ask any parent or sibling of someone who has special needs and is developmentally unable ever to hold a job or live independently what keeps them up at night. For parents, it's dying before their special needs child does because they're so afraid of what will happen to that child left all alone in the world. If there are siblings, then they have to wonder how on earth they can care for a special needs sibling when most services dry up after the sibling hits eighteen, and trying to get assistance or navigate our pathetic social safety net is next to impossible - oh yeah, and they're supposed to raise their own kids, pay for their college, and save for retirement while they're at it.

[FanofPaine]

Because it bears repeating, Mike, please read amazingdays' post. This is the real situation in Virginia and if you knew about the General Assembly you would know this.

[dagdavid]

There are still those who blindly spew, "America is the greatest country on earth." Time to reevaluate how we define greatness.

[thekidde]

Amen to that. Most who utter this chauvenistic crap have no idea of the history of genocide, intolerance, racism and hate generated, mostly, by those who fail to recognize the wisdom of the founders in separating church and state and placing checks and balances on the three branches of government. Bush's unitary executive b.s. and Cheney's idiotic "separate" V.P. nonsense would spin them up. Time to dump the tea in the harbor again.

[madprogressive]

Don't you just love "Compassionate Conservatism", an oxymoron if ever there was one. God Bless America!!!!!!!

[twofish]

Why punish the children? Shut down facilities in Republican districts. Let them feel the pain they are so fond of dishing out.

The Repiglicans in the state legislature are doing the same no-taxes-ever-ever-ever dance here in California, too. Democrats keep coming up with combinations of cuts and taxes, but they just dig in their heels, screw up their little faces, and shout "No!" The governor ought to make the first cuts in their districts, but he's got an R after his name, so that won't happen. Thank the gods the US Constitution keeps Ahnold from running for President, so he can't screw up the country like he has our state.

[DomainDiva]

My son in law worked a third job to pay for my grandsons medicine after Bush cut funds in 2001. He waiterd 6 years for the additional services he should have received.

It's one of those "Be blessed and filled" moments that the right wingers have become so good at.

[Dugus]

Here is reality. I have worked with special needs persons for over 38 years, starting as a teen volunteer. I was an ARC of Va. Board Member through the eighties for the Southwestern Va. area.
They are closing facilities too. Southeastern Va. Training Center first. The sad thing is the communities are NOT ready for the most severe and profoundly involved persons who they will hastily place in apartments, small homes, and so on. MARK my words, in 10 to 20 years there will be a backlash movement to reopen facilities. Why? Because these placements will fail as money fails to follow the persons or is cut by our Republican friends (you no, taxes are BAD even when inflation occurs). Most of the clients do not vote, do not understand voting. I predict that we will have many jailed, abused, in prostitution, involved in crimes (following others who use them), street living, and so on, until someone notices and says, "Oh the poor things, they need services to meet their needs where they are (developmentally). We need Training Centers and Group Homes."
The southwestern part of Virginia doesn't exactly overflow with OT, PT, SP, etc. that many need. Most go to the money of northern Va. or the Tidewater. Neither does it have an abundance of homes or apartment living that can accommodate the special diets, medication needs, behavioral supports and so on that will be needed.
A big mistake Governor. I will retire soon. Mark my words.

[siddag04]

Check out the mercury (thimerosol) content in your vaccines. You too, grownups. Mercury causes brain damage. How much have you damaged your children and yourselves, flu shots etc., in blilnd trust to these idiots that are dragging us all down?

[Canuck27]

The problem has never been about the few who screw the many it's always been about how the many screw each other. We abdicate our responsibilities to the president, the congress, the king , the pope, the prime minister, the super star and give unimaginable power over countless millions to a few thousand. Then when we are suffering in one way or another we believe them when they tell us it's not them that's the problem it's the communists, the blacks, the homosexuals, the terrorists, the hippies, the immigrants ,the unions,the atheists, and like a pack of Michael Vick dogs we tear each other apart and all they have to do is count their money and occasionally stoke the fires of fear and hatred. Love your neighbor as yourself because he is.

[amazingdays]

Baloney. Drive through Northern Virginia, as you suggest, and you will see rich companies, rich families... and Democrats who would be happy to support higher taxes to pay for human services, just like our cohorts in Maryland, across the Potomac River.

You are showing a lack of knowledge of the state as a whole when you blame the Democrats of Virginia for the General Assembly's insane phobia about raising taxes. That is the obsession of the Republicans, who are for the most part NOT from Northern Virginia but from more rural and less prosperous parts of the state.

The Republicans of Virginia control the budget because they control the House. They are far more extreme than Republicans on the national stage. Remember what the head of the Republican Party of Virginia said during the campaign, like comparing Obama to Osama bin Laden? He's the favored new darling of our state's increasingly lunatic Republican Party.

Tim Kaine is facing a devastating downturn and is constitutionally required to balance the budget. He is facing a situation made worse by willfully ignorant anti-tax Republicans in the General Assembly whose motto seems to be that cutting taxes will get them re-elected, so who cares about unmet needs. This financial crash has taken an existing shaky financial structure, due to the anti-tax nutcases, and destroyed it. Point your finger at the House Republicans if you want to know the real culprits, and the voters who bought their snake oil.

[Zanti]

Beautifully put. Ohio is in the same situation, and for the very same reasons. Our governor is doing what he has to, and the fault rests with the Ohio GOP and our idiot voters, few of whom seem to know why taxes are even necessary--they just know they don't want them. Meanwhile, the money floats down from Mars on parachutes. Or maybe it's supposed to flow up from the ground--dunno. It's hard to know where how voters expect things to be funded, but they never hesitate to gripe when services are cut. They sense no link between their refusal to pay for services and the eventual disappearance of same. The cause and effect is too abstract, too complicated.

Anyway, I thought I'd thank you before this thread turns into the usual faith bash-athon--the seeds have already been planted, it seems, and I anticipate that any and all genuine discussion is about to go bye-bye.

[Trebor1]

Zanti - because of Ohio's never-ending tax abatements to business, everything si on the backs of the homeowner. The homeownner is being taxed out of his house. In the 1950s, property tax recipts in Ohio were approximately 50% residential property and 50% corporate property. Now they are about 72% residential and 28% business. The homeowner seems to be the only one paying. Even we who believe taxes are a necessary part of a civilized society can only pay so much before we can't afford to live there.

[FanofPaine]

So much ditto. I live in the state of Virginia and all we seem to hear from Republicans here is how much Tim Kaine wants to raise taxes, especially on items like cigarettes, even though we have one of the lowest tax rates. The Republicans are stalling any plans to raise taxes and that means big budget cuts. Unfortunately, some amazing programs will be cut, but Tim can't get these items passed by himself.

[SiberianRat]

I can barely even read articles like this they're so upsetting. I have to believe that somehow, for whatever unknown cosmic reason, this suffering is necessary, and that there is going to be growth from this unexplainable state of horror--all of the suffering will in the end help transform humanity into something better. If I didn't believe that, I'd probably roll up in a corner and bawl nonstop.

[MaryanneAZ]

It is nice to know I'm not alone in that feeling of wanting to roll up in a corner and bawl over the atrocities our various locales are heaping on those who are voiceless in the voting process. In Arizona, the substandard bus service cut local routes on both ends of the day due to decrease tax revenue and the need to lower costs and THEN added three new express bus routes. The issue: the Transit-Dependent (people of color, disabled (myself), elderly, students, working poor) lost their way to work and home from work and vital services (dialysis) while the Transit-Choice riders (mainly White suburbanites with one or more cars to park at a Park N Ride) gained three new express bus routes and had no losses to their original express and Rapid bus services. The Transit-Dependent are voiceless mainly non-voters, while the Transit-Choice riders are White suburbanite voters. The haves still have plenty and lose nothing, while the have-nots continue to have nothing and lose everything due to budget woes. Where is the justice? I hope Obama does remember the have-nots. Please support your local food banks -- it is something that WE can do.

[pons1595]

Freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought.
Pope John Paul II