DISABILITY COSTS

Dear Editor,

President Bush is talking about scaling back Social Security Disability
programs to save money with his new plan to allow workers to invest their
Social Security money in the stock market.

To put this in perspective, the average Social Security Disability
recipient gets about $5,000 each year. On the other hand, one law
enforcement officer cost about $100,000 a year in salary and equipment
alone. The cost to arrest, try and incarcerate one nonviolent drug offender
is about $60,000 a year. I

f each law enforcement officer catches one nonviolent drug offender per
month, that equals a bottom end number of $820,000 per year in total cost
to the taxpayers, or as much money as the US is currently spending to
provide for 165 disabled persons who have had to prove they are incapable
of providing for themselves in Social Security court.

If the US government were merely to stop enforcing laws against nonviolent
drug crimes, the savings would allow the most vulnerable of our society,
the elderly and disabled, to stop living on cat food and Salvation Army
handouts.

Larry Monaghan, Arcadia