My Original Post: So when it came to the inhumanity of rejecting refugees, I could at least understand the painfully, horrificly misguided logic of confusing isolationism with national security, yadda yadda. But when it comes to MEALS ON WHEELS?!?!?!?!?! Feeding the elderly yields no results?!?!?!?!?!?! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! HOW CAN ANYONE EVEN JUSTIFY THIS LINE OF THINKING?! Even from the stone-cold view of focusing only on costs, the money saved on expensive nursing homes by keeping this low-cost option available IS A POSITIVE ECONOMIC RESULT, you heartless, inhuman, disgusting monsters. I’m speaking from personal experience again: MEALS. ON. WHEELS. SAVES. LIVES. AND. MONEY. Period.
Commenter: “even the leftists over at Snopes state, “the effect of CDBG cuts on local Meals on Wheels groups is uncertain.” Only 3 percent of the Meals on Wheels budget nationally comes from the federal government at all, and only a portion of that comes from the CDBG.”
It’s frustrating to be manipulated by our media, who should report facts.
http://www.dailywire.com/…/fake-news-did-trump-just…
Me: You didn’t actually READ the Snopes article that you’re sub-quoting, did you? Thankfully, I did! Let me clarify a few things:
I have watched the video of Trump’s budget guy talking about this issue, so straight from the horse’s mouth, with no “Media Manipulation” filtering his words, I watched him claim that he plans to cut Community Development Block Grants entirely from the HUD budget, watched him specifically list Meals on Wheels and after school programs as examples of ways in which these CDBGs are used, and wtached him claim that he can’t justify spending money on these grants at all anymore because they don’t produce results. So yes, this new administration is absolutely advertising their desire to squash programs aimed at helping the unfortunate if it helps their bottom line. They are showing their true colors, and these colors are unfortunate.
Next up, some numbers. It is true, thankfully, that the soon-to-be-nonexistant CDBGs only make up a minimal portion of funds used by Meals on Wheels. What was your quoted number? 3%? That sounds tiny, not so bad! With a mere 3% cut, instead of starving 2.4 million elderly people, we would only be starving 72,000 elderly people (well, plus all the ones who are already starving because they’re still sitting on a waitlist). Let’s look those 72,000 people and their families in the eye and tell them they’re not eating anymore.
Okay, okay, I’m not being fair. Your quoted 3% refers to all federal funds going to the Meals on Wheels National office, and CDBGs are only a tiny piece of that; the majority of Meals on Wheels government funding is actually from the Department of Health and Human Services, and CDBGs are just a supplement that localities may choose to use for Meals on Wheels based on their local community need. So that makes this cut DEFINITELY not bad, right, since it’s less than 3%? Well, no, because Trumps’ budget is also proposing an 18% cut for HHS, and while it’s not yet known exactly how that cut will break down, chances are that Administration for Community Living will suffer for it- we just don’t know how many tens of thousands of elderly people will actually be forced to starve at this point due to this budget. Still working out who to screw over how much at this point!
One last point: Reading is so important! Because that 3% you quote isn’t the amount of money going to Meals on Wheels- it’s the amount of money going to Meals on Wheels’ national organization, which helps support over 5,000 local Meals on Wheels chapters. The actual feeding-of-elderly-folks happens in these local chapters. So while the central org only receive 3% of its funding from the federal government, want to know how much these frontline chapters receive on average? 35%. That’s over a third. So, if HHS cuts 18% of its funds to Meals on Wheels, and those fund feeld35% of Meals on Wheels’ clients, then a mere 151,200 elderly people get added to the starving Americans list.
Purposefully suggesting cuts that would likely starve over 150,000 Americans is absolutely unconscionable, and there’s no amount of political or media spin that can alter this basic math.
Helga without the H 