Mental Health

Transparent Statement:
The state must fully fund Mental Health, even though the problems are invisible to most of us.

Mental Health is seemingly easy to ignore, especially when it does not impact you personally and you do not see the problems caused by it. But it is a huge problem. And just as with K12 funding, the State is under Contempt of Court for not adequately funding it.

To be honest, I do not have significant experience or even exposure to mental health either, but I am well aware of the problems it causes, especially for those trying to support family members with mental health issues. My first exposure was as a child growing up in Baltimore. My grandfather was the President of an organization focused on training people with schizophrenia to get jobs and live on their own. It was enlightening, to put it mildly.

The State has a responsibility to care for those with mental health issues. We are clearly not meeting that responsibility, which not only is a disservice to those suffering from mental health issues, but also unfairly complicates the lives of family members who cannot just turn a blind eye.

Alas, there is unsufficient state tax revenue to fully fund mental health services. While it is a lot easier politically to raise taxes to fund education — of course, we have yet to do that either — mental health funding is not as universally supported. But it must happen. And as with funding education, the solution lies in reforming our tax structure and slightly raising taxes on upper income people. Sorry.