I'm sitting in a basement room of the state capitol building called the Lobby Message Center.  Somehow, I was scheduled for an 8:00 am meeting with a senator to discuss our bill to regulate seclusion and restraint of school students and then a 3:30 meeting with the Co-Speakers office to talk about our opposition to building a new state hospital in Junction City.  With seven hours in-between, I thank heavens for the internet!

The legislative session is starting to lean toward the finish line.  Key legislators met in private with the Governor yesterday to hammer out a budget deal.  Rumor has it that they succeeded.  The next month will be filled with attempts to get surviving bills heard by committees and to get the big deals done.  The last two weeks of the session are when the amateurs stay home and the powerful converse and resolve.

On the state budget front, everyone knows there will be major cuts in services and benefits.  Oregon is slated to have the shortest period of public assistance in the nation, to make deep cuts in senior and disabled care, eliminate support for the families of people with intellectual disabilities, cut in-home supports for all populations, and more.  Schools are already laying off teachers and some have announced cuts to special education services.

Meanwhile, on the federal level, the Speaker of the House is demanding "trillions" of cuts to the federal budget.  This apparently includes shifting the costs of many human services programs to states.  It isn't hard to do the math on that one.  Bottom line: elimination of human services because states can't afford to provide what they are now.

Are we witnessing the break down of the social compact?  Will we go back to the 1930s when 80% of the elderly were poor and only the children of the well-to-do get a decent education?  I think very few people in this building would like to see that.  It should be interesting to see how we can avoid it.