Necessary Roughness

Rep. Ander Crenshaw (R-FL) announced on the Hill Blog that he has introduced a bill (H.R. 2370) that would create tax-exempt spending accounts for the care of disabled people. This looks like the already existing tax-exempt flexible spending accounts for health care, and if that is the case, this would be really cool.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, nearly 1 in 5 Americans - or 53 million people - said they had some level of disability, while 1 in 8 - or 33 million - reported they had a severe disability. My legislation would create a tax exempt Financial Security Account (FSA) that could be used for expenses related to a disabled beneficiary including: education, medical and dental care, community based support services, employment training and support, moving, assistive technology, and, after the age of 18, housing and transportation.

Now one may be snide and wonder why we shouldn’t have tax-free spending accounts for everybody. I’d be for that, but it would be less strain on the government and us just to repeal the Sixteenth Amendment.