Ehrlich on Washington column, August 7, 2000

NEWS FROM Robert L. Ehrlich, Jr. Second Congressional District of Maryland 1 407 York Road, Suite 304 Lutherville, Maryland 2 1 093 EHRLICH ON WASHINGTON By Congressman Robert L. Ehrlich, Jr. 315 Cannon House Office Building Washington, D.C. 20515 Week of August 7, 2000 Why Discourage Work? If you were unfairly penalized by the federal tax code for earning above $14,000, would you still work? How would you provide for your family? These questions, unfortunately, must be answered by the millions of blind Americans who must decide between losing their much-needed disability benefits for earning above the poverty threshold and keeping their benefits by earning below this limit. As a partial result of this tax unfairness, over 70% of blind Americans are unemployed. In today’s era of economic prosperity and low unemployment rates, it is bad policy to discourage any group of Americans from working. Rather than providing incentives to fill the increasing number job openings, our antiquated tax code encourages dependance for the blind. For nearly twenty years, the blind and senior citizens were linked for the purposes of the Social Security earnings test. Both groups could earn up to the same limit, the earnings threshold, before they began to lose Social Security benefits. In 1996, the earnings limit for older Americans was raised to $30,000, and just recently, this limit was eliminated completely by the Republican-led Congress and was signed into law. The blind American’s earnings limit, however, has remained the same — below the poverty level. Blind individuals are limited to earnings of approximately $14,000 before they lose all benefits. As a state legislator, I met a remarkable man, Dale Otto, CEO and President of Columbia Lighthouse for the Blind. I learned from him some of the daily economic and social challenges blind people must confront and about their difficulty finding worthwhile employment. Dale faces these issues, because he is also blind. He impressed me with his articulate desire to be a part of the American dream, and I have spent the last five years working on legislation to restore fairness and encourage, rather than penalize work. Recently, I received the highest honor from the nation’s largest and oldest blind organization, the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) for my work on this legislation to help the blind achieve independence. I introduced H.R. 1601, the Blind Empowerment Act, which would address the inequity in the Social Security Act and raise the earnings limit for blind workers to $30,000 by