DSAIA - ABLE Act |
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Down Syndrome Affiliates in Action (DSAIS) members pushed for a bill to encourage individuals with disabilities and their families to save, tax-free, for disability-related expenses. Called the ABLE Accounts Act, the legislation is intended to help people with all kinds of disabilities become more financially independent. It would allow them to save money without jeopardizing government disability benefits. The accounts would be similar to college savings accounts, IRA’s, and other instruments that let people to put aside funds tax-free for education, medical needs, and retirement. Presently, people with disabilities may not use such accounts because to do so would jeopardize their federal disability benefits. Under federal rules, they lose eligibility for benefits if their assets exceed $2,000.
“We see this as a first step to breaking the cycle of poverty that’s basically been forced on people with disabilities,” said Steve Beck of Fairfax, Virginia, whose nine-year-old daughter Natalie has Down syndrome. “They want to be able to earn money and save it like everybody else. They have the ability, but restrictions that are placed on them have been preventing them from doing so,” he said. Lydia Orso and Jessica Green were among about twenty people with
Down syndrome who were part of the DSAIA group. They spent a busy day
scurrying around Capitol Hill shaking hands, swapping business cards,
and meeting with such legislators as Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers
(R-WA), Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS), and Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI). McMorris Rodgers, herself the mother of a little boy with Down syndrome, had tears in her eyes as she addressed the group at a packed breakfast meeting in the Rayburn Office Building. (At left, with advocates Heather Hancock and Craig Blackburn) “I’m so thankful to you who have walked this path before me for the tremendous gains that have been made, and the tremendous progress that has been made. And I believe that my son has more opportunities than ever because of many of you in this room who have been plowing this road before me,” she said. “But we still have a lot more to do. That’s why I’m so thrilled that all of you are here. “It’s important that you are here, and important that you make your voices heard,” she said.
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“I
am a productive member of society. I work, volunteer, vote and pay
taxes,” said Jessica Green, a young woman with Down syndrome from
Indianapolis (fourth from left). “I would like to see Congress support
a bill that would help me have a full and meaningful life.”