Chairman OWENS. Thank you, Mr. Dart. I have noted that without objection the documents that you have submitted will be received, reviewed and properly annotated.

We salute your travelling across all the states and gathering this tremendous detailed documentation of human misery caused by the absence of the kind of bill that we are considering here today. We definitely appreciate what you have done so far, and look forward to working with you in the future.

Our next witness is Ms. Sandra Parrino, the chairperson of the National Council on Disability. Ms. Parrino.

Ms. PARRINO. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, and distinguished members of the Committee.

My name is Sandy Parrino. It is an honor to be invited to testify today before the House Subcommittee on Select Education on this, your first day of hearings on H.R. 2273, the "Americans with Disabilities Act of 1989."

I am, in private life, a mother of two children with significant disabilities. I am, in public life, the Chairperson of the National Council on Disability, an independent Federal agency whose board is comprised of 15 knowledgeable persons, including persons with disabilities, parents, and experts on disability service programs.

All of us are appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. We are an independent Federal agency with a statutory mandate to analyze issues related to public policy affecting Americans with disabilities and to make recommendations.

The major thrust of our efforts is towards eliminating barriers which prevent persons with disabilities from full participation in the mainstream of American life. The National Council on Disability has not been timid in its efforts in both originating and spearheading the Americans with Disabilities Act. We first recommended this legislation in the report entitled "Toward Independence" that was submitted to the President and Congress in 1986.

In our 1988 report to the President and Congress, "On the Threshold of Independence," we submitted draft legislation of the "Americans With Disabilities Act." As you know, this was the legislation introduced in the 100th Congress. H.R. 2273, which you have before you today, represents the second generation of the "Americans With Disabilities Act."

The National Council is heartened by the progress of the Americans With Disabilities Act in the 101st Congress. On the Senate side, the leadership of Senator Harkin, Chairman of the Subcommittee on the Handicapped, has been key in bringing the bill close to full committee consideration.

The initiative taken by President Bush, Attorney General Thornburgh, White House staff and others in the administration has been an essential component of the momentum that is building toward enactment. We are pleased that the House is beginning legislative consideration of the bill, and we look forward, Mr. Chairman and Subcommittee members, to your leadership as we move through the legislative process.

While this piece of legislation that you have before you today is not the exact piece the National Council originally drafted, the intentions are the same. Flexibility, but also persistence are most essential in accomplishing our goals.

WILL ADA REQUIRE EMPLOYERS TO EMPLOY UNQUALIFIED PEOPLE?

ADA SPECIFICALLY STATES THAT EMPLOYERS WILL NOT BE REQUIRED TO EMPLOY UNQUALIFIED PERSONS. HOWEVER THEY WOULD BE REQUIRED TO MAKE REASONABLE ACCOMMODATIONS FOR QUALIFIED CANDIDATES WITH

DISABILITIES.

SUMMARY

EVER INCREASING MILLIONS OF AMERICANS WITH DISABILITIES SUFFER MASSIVE DISCRIMINATION IN ALL ASPECTS OF SOCIAL PROCESS WHICH CONDEMNS THEM ΤΟ LIFETIMES OF SEGREGATION, POVERTY AND UNPRODUCTIVE DEPENDENCY ON PUBLIC AND PRIVATE WELFARE. THIS IS MORALLY INTOLERABLE AND ECONOMICALLY DISASTROUS.

ADA WILL NOT SOLVE ALL

OF THE PROBLEMS OF AMERICANS WITH DISABILITIES, BUT IT IS AN ESSENTIAL FOUNDATION FOR ALL OPTIMAL SOLUTIONS. BECAUSE UNTIL WE ELIMINATE THE INSIDIOUS ASSUMPTION THAT PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES ARE LESS THAN FULLY HUMAN, AND ESTABLISH THE CONCEPT AND PRACTICE OF THEIR EQUALITY, THERE WILL BE NO MORE THAN TOKEN ACTION TO ENABLE THEM TO PARTICIPATE FULLY IN THE PRODUCTIVE MAINSTREAM OF SOCIETY.

THE ECONOMIC AND MORAL GREATNESS OF AMERICA IS BASED ON A HISTORY OF EXTENDING EQUAL OPPORTUNITY TO WAVE AFTER WAVE OF PREVIOUSLY OPPRESSED AND DEPENDENT GROUPS. PROVIDING SUCH OPPORTUNITY TO AMERICANS WITH DISABILITIES WILL RESULT IN YET ANOTHER PERIOD OF DYNAMIC GROWTH IN THE PRODUCTIVITY, PROSPERITY AND QUALITY OF LIFE OF THE NATION. IT WILL REINFORCE AMERICA'S TRADITIONAL LEADERSHIP FOR DEMOCRACY AND HUMAN RIGHTS THROUGHOUT THE WORLD.

THE TASK FORCE URGES ALL WHO BELIEVE IN THE DREAM OF LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL TO UNITE IN SUPPORT OF THE IMMEDIATE ENACTMENT AND THE VIGOROUS IMPLEMENTATION OF THE AMERICANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT.

Justin Dart
Chairperson

Dr. Elizabeth Boggs
Co-chairperson

Lex Frieden
Coordinator

with disabilities, and to ensure that Americans with disabilities would no longer be second class citizens.

The Americans With Disabilities Act of 1989 is not only important to over 43 million citizens with disabilities, it is also, as I will illustrate a bit later, of the highest importance to our nation.

From the person who becomes quadriplegic as the result of a football injury to the infant with spina bifida in a hospital crib, from rapidly growing numbers of senior citizens to 75,000 Vietnam veterans the basic nugget of truth is that, due to discriminatory practices, persons with disabilities continue to suffer from the highest rates of unemployment and poverty compared to any other group of Americans.

Americans with disabilities have less access to decent schooling, housing, employment, health care and transportation than any other persons in this country, including non-citizens.

ADA is critically important because its provisions are shaped to break the chains that bind many of the millions of persons with disabilities into a bondage of unjust, unwanted dependency on families, charity and social welfare. This dependency is a major and totally unnecessary contributor to public deficits and private expenditures.

These hearings will provide you with a vital source of information to assess the scope and meaning of the "Americans With Disabilities Act of 1989." On behalf of the millions of citizens with disabilities, I ask you to keep in mind that for decades people with disabilities have been waiting.

For decades people with disabilities have seen laws enacted by their elected representatives that prohibit discrimination for other groups of individuals. For decades, Americans with disabilities, have had to live with the realization that there are no similarly effective laws to protect them.

Today, I am proud to say, there is an emerging group-consciousness on the part of Americans with disabilities, their families, friends and advocates. This consciousness represents a mounting political activism. The over 43 million Americans are our nation's largest and no longer silent minority.

Martin Luther King had a dream and we have a vision. Dr. King dreamed of an America where people are judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. ADA's vision is of an America where persons are judged by their abilities, not their disabilities.

In "Toward Independence," our 1986 report to Congress, our vision was to shape responsible legislation by which Federal disincentives and barriers to employment are removed so that disabled Americans can go to work.

In the 1984 report to Congress by the Rehabilitation Services Administration, it was indicated that for every $1 spend to return a disabled person to work, $18 were returned to the tax base upon their placement. This would include not only taxes paid by the individual, but money saved from the removal of public expenditures. The majority of persons with disabilities "not working" said they want to work. The Louis Harris poll which we sponsored in 1985, indicated that persons with disabilities in the work place are rated

"good" to "excellent" by an overwhelming majority of their employers.

Disability does not mean incompetence. The perception that persons with disabilities are dependent by nature is the result of discriminatory attitudes, not the result of disability.

America cannot afford to discard citizens with disabilities. In a nation with a labor shortage, two-thirds of all disabled Americans between the ages of 16 and 64 years of age are not working. The two words "not working" are perhaps the truest definition of what it means to be disabled in America today.

As Louis Harris discovered in the poll commissioned by the Council, people with disabilities want to become involved in their communities as taxpaying contributors. It is contrary to sound principles of fiscal responsibility to spend billions of Federal tax dollars to relegate people with disabilities to positions of dependency upon public support.

People with disabilities represent America's greatest untapped resource of individuals who want to work. As we all know, in America, jobs are a major sources of status, dignity, and selfesteem. "What do you do?” is a conversational staple. To contribute to society and support yourself is a cherished precept of our American vision.

ADA sweeps into obsolescence those obstacles that limit opportunity, promote discrimination, prevent integration, restrict choice and frustrate self-help for Americans with disabilities.

Advancing age, economic circumstances, illness, and accident will someday, according to reputable statistics, put most of us in the category of a person with a disability. We are all potential beneficiaries of the ADA.

The goals espoused in the Americans with Disabilities Act are economically practical as well as morally correct and humanely necessary. The ADA is legislation that does away with troubling historical echoes, echoes that are no longer tolerable in a society committed to equal opportunity for all its citizens.

Esteemed members of Congress, in closing, I wish to relay a message from our National Council on Disability and the over 43 million Americans with disabilities. For decades, we have retained a faith in the reformability and adaptability of our government.

For decades we have been told to have patience, but patience is not an inexhaustible commodity. People with disabilities have waited long enough. America has waited long enough. The Americans with Disabilities Act must be enacted now.

The vision of equality for 43 million of Americans with disabilities now rests with you.

Thank you for this opportunity to testify. The National Council on Disability looks forward to working with you on this most important piece of legislation.

[The prepared statement of Sandra Parrino follows:]