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NEWS
| April 22
Social Work
Students question policymaker
U.S. Rep. Martin Frost asks future
social workers to be advocates for the services they will provide
in their careers.
By Brad
Rollins
Contributor to The Shorthorn
While Sonja Camden sat in class Monday
afternoon, her husband was at home caring for their 19-year-old
son with the brain capacity of a two-year old. The couple take turns
sitting with Matthew, who suffers from a degenerative central nervous
system disorder called Noonan’s Syndrome.
She said the government provides no reimbursement for families who
care for their own ill.
“It scares me,” the social work graduate student said.
“When something happens to us, I don’t know what’s
going to happen to our son.”
She asked her congressman what the government could do to help.
He said he didn’t know either.
“I’m not trying to duck the issues,” he said. “But
I don’t pretend to know everything, and I don’t know the
answer to some of these questions.”
Camden and about twenty other social work graduate students questioned
U.S. Rep. Martin Frost on issues Monday ranging from nursing home
deregulation to prescription drug coverage to mass transit.
But he said the answer to many of the queries posed dealt with money
— or, rather, the lack of it. The Arlington Democrat used his
audience to lambast what he said was President Bush’s excessive
tax cuts, saying they would lead to cutting basic services for the
poor.
“Despite what some people may tell you, lower taxes mean less
revenue,” he said. “And what we’re finding out is
that essential programs are being cut so people who are already
doing pretty well can have a tax cut.”
The federal budget atmosphere coupled with the state’s own
financial woes are an equation for disaster, he said.
“Texas historically races Mississippi to the bottom for most
social services,” he said.
He encouraged the students to “become advocates” for protecting
the services they will administer in their career field.
“You are the ones who ought to be banging on the doors of your
congressmen and your senators and saying ‘Wait a minute,’
” he said.
The congressman’s visit was arranged to give students in the
social services and policy class a chance to question a policymaker
firsthand.
“We feel very fortunate that Congressman Frost could come speak
to us,” said adjunct professor Teresa Buehler. “We are
his constituents, so you would expect he would, but it’s a
good opportunity for the students.”
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