Getting tough on kids in wheelchairs.

• Author: Ervin, Mike

It is a sign of how depraved things have gotten in Washington that Newt Gingrich and the Republican Congress are whipping up resentment against people with disabilities in general and kids with disabilities in particular.

Long before there was an Americans with Disabilities Act, there was Public Law 94-142, passed in 1975, which made it clear that states were to provide a "free and appropriate" public education to all disabled kids. Before that law, states had been shirking their responsibilities so that about a million disabled kids were receiving no education at all, let alone a segregated, inferior one.

This law, now known as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), has been without question the most important catalyst in the enormous social progress people with disabilities have made over the last twenty years. But to hear some teachers and lobbyists moan about it, you'd think it was the major reason our schools are so violent and financially strapped.

The American Federation of Teachers ran one of those pseudo-op-ed advertisements in The New York Times that told the "typical story" of a special-ed kid in a mainstream classroom who would "scream, throw furniture," and eat paste. Because Congress is due to reauthorize IDEA this fall, the AFT and five other groups are lobbying for an amendment that would allow school districts to kick out any disabled kid who is disruptive in any way.

This would accomplish AFT's goal of making it easy for schools to disregard kids who are too expensive or too difficult to serve: that's the same attitude that made IDEA necessary in the first place.

Kids with disabilities are also the targets of the crusade to cut Social Security. The House voted in March to cut off SSI payments to 200,000 disabled children - about 30 percent of current recipients. The Senate approved cuts in September that are less severe but will still mean mass purging. Families need SSI to pay for things like wheelchairs and extra medical and transportation costs not covered by Medicaid. To qualify for SSI, a child's family must meet a strict standard of poverty; they won't be able to afford these aids on their...