In the case of the East L.A. County Regional Center, a quick cost-benefit analysis should suffice to show that the DIR program should not be discontinued:

Autism is indeed being diagnosed at record rates, and it is in society's interest to find effective therapies. In this case, the DIR model seemed promising. As for the cost of the program: 4 million dollars is a paltry amount of money. The California budget deficit alone is 60 billion dollars, or 15,000 times the cost of the East L.A. County DIR program. Additionally, ending the program will likely cost more than it saves via administrative costs, lost jobs, wasted facilities, and wasted expertise. Overall, it's a very poorly conceived plan designed to distract from the real problems of trillion dollar bank bailouts and wars.  

On the other hand, the benefits to society of productive autistics often produce scalable returns: autistics who can overcome their disorders and focus their obsessions on something which society values are some of the most successful and innovative people in Silicon Valley, the Department of Defense, and on Wall Street.  A full understanding of why autism matters for all of humanity can be found in the work of Temple Grandin:

www.theinductive.com/.../...ctives-on-society.html