This speech was written for the president of a state association representing retarded children and delivered in a variety of public forums in opposition to an initiative that would cut funding of a training program for retarded children and young adults. The initiative was defeated in the elections.

Robyn and the true spirit of the tax man.

   Robyn wants to be a normal teenager.
   She's a good student, eager to learn, a hard worker, and one of the brightest in her class. She likes to dress in the newest styles and listens to the latest music. She tries hard to fit in and be popular.
   She has her favorite television programs and subscribes to a teen magazine. She's quick to laugh and to cry. Her feelings are easily hurt, but she just as easily bounces back. Around the house, she empties the trash, does the dishes, and helps with the cooking. She has a part time job.
   But Robyn is not a normal teenager.
   Robyn is retarded.
   It's not a crippling retardation requiring institutional care. Robyn lives at home, has her own room, dresses herself for school every morning, makes her bed, fixes her own breakfast, and paces herself so she always arrives at the end of her driveway in time to catch the early school bus to her special education classes.
   She can tell time on her own watch. She's able to read and write at a grade school level and makes regular use of the library. She enjoys doing her homework and spends evenings at her desk struggling over arithmetic, reading and writing assignments.
   But Robyn will never be able to live a truly independent life. She will not be able to leave home at the end of her adolescence. For Robyn, the transition stage that culminates in work, college and family for other young adults will never really happen for Robyn. She will always be, in many ways, a child with the abilities and emotions and cognititons of a child. She will always need the watchful, protection of adults.
   However, it's not a hopeless situation. Robyn is now in her second year of a program run by the Idaho Division of Vocational Rehabilitation that allows her to try out a series of community work environments. She learns to take orders, to complete tasks, to use the bus for transport to and from work.
   It's an attempt by the State to provide Robyn, and others like her, the chance to work at a job matched to her abilities. It's a program that gives Robyn a chance at removing herself from total dependence on society and to return something to society.
   But that may soon change.
   The One Per Cent Initiative to be placed before Idaho voters in November threatens a large percentage of children and young adults with disabilities like Robyn. It's successful passage into law would mean they may be unable to assume even a small place in the world of self-reliance and work.
   Idaho vocational rehabilitation would lose over a million dollars in general funds and over $3 million in matching federal funds. Staff positions would have to be cut and almost three thousand Robyns in Idaho would no longer be allowed the chance at a fuller, more productive life.
   Moreover, the added costs in terms of lost productivity, wages, and the added social burden of programs to assist people like Robyn would cost Idaho even more over the long term in welfare and family support benefits.
   Idaho's ongoing attempt to de-institutionalize those with disabilities into more normal, integrated community-based living arrangements would be seriously compromised; institutional costs to the state would rise. The local community vocational rehabilitation office that serves Robyn and a score of others would close.
   Social welfare programs have been popular punching bags for self-serving politicians. Too often the recipients of our social assistance programs are painted as a faceless mass who absorb taxes like some alien blob.
   But they are not.
   They are individuals with human faces and lives and hopes and dreams. When we buy into the popular political caricatures about welfare and wasted tax dollars, and when we vote our pocketbooks and not our social conscience, we risk shoving these people into unfulfilled lives.
   I've never known a more cheerful, optimistic, willing person than Robyn. She dreams of going out into the world, of a husband and a family, of driving a car, of earning her own money. For Robyn, these may be unrealistic.
   But maybe not.
   Continued assistance from her community can move her dreams just a little closer to reality and help her find a productive niche in her community.
   She deserves a chance to make the most of all her talents and abilities, and she can with our help and the work of the maligned tax man. We need to remember that the tax collector is not some distant entity bent on stealing our hard-earned dollars.
   The tax man is us, and always has been.
   It is through our willingness to tax ourselves for the good of the thousands of Robyns scattered across Idaho that we provide them with the best of all possible lives. In so doing, we strengthen and preserve the essential human spirit found at the core of every enduring community.

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