Don't let anyone mislead you: killing Federal funding of Meals on Wheels would be a devastating blow

[pnwmom]

to the program -- even though it appears to be a relative small part of its funding.

Volunteers across the country provide their services for free -- but the financial support provided by the Federal government is still critical.

And since every Federal dollar in the program is matched by 3 from other sources, that means it comprises about a fourth of the budget. Millions of seniors will be impacted by this cut.

http://mashable.com/2017/03/16/trump-proposed-budget-meals-on-wheels/#F6NUNTaYaqqr

“The problem with a skinny budget is it is lean on details. So, while we don’t know the exact impact yet, cuts of any kind to these highly successful and leveraged programs would be a devastating blow to our ability to provide much-needed care for millions of vulnerable seniors in America, which in turn saves billions of dollars in reduced healthcare expenses” said Ellie Hollander, President and CEO Meals on Wheels America in the statement.

"The need is growing rapidly, and federal funding has not kept pace," the statement continues, "The network is already serving 23 million fewer meals now than in 2005, and waiting lists are mounting in every state. At a time when increased funding is needed, we fear that the millions of seniors who rely on us every day for a nutritious meal, safety check and visit from a volunteer will be left behind."

"This successful public-private partnership, for which every federal dollar is matched with about three dollars from other sources, enables at-risk seniors to stay out of more expensive healthcare settings and remain more healthy, safe and independent in their own homes, where they want to be"

"After all," the statement says, "We can provide a senior with Meals on Wheels for an entire year for roughly the same cost of an average one-day stay in the hospital or ten days in a nursing home."

[redstatebluegirl]

1. I had a Great Aunt who lived in a small town a long way from the rest of the family.

She refused to move closer to all of us and we worried about her all the time. The Meals on Wheels people had our phone numbers to call if they had any concerns. One day they went to deliver her food and she didn't answer the door. They called 911 and then my Mom. She had fallen in the bathroom the day before. They are angels, they do so much more than feed people.

[pnwmom]

3. And almost all those angels are volunteers. The Federal money leverages the work of volunteers

across the country. It also helps keep the elderly in their own homes and out of nursing homes (saving the government the Medicaid costs.) It is exactly the kind of thing Federal money SHOULD pay for.

[redstatebluegirl]

6. We knew that, the man who called 911 drove an hour and a half to her funeral a few

years later. Yes, we should pay for this!

[GP6971]

13. Let's not forget the social aspect

of Meals on Wheels. The social interaction with the volunteers is just as important as the meal itself.

[jehop61]

5. They are a vital link

We served meals on wheels and I once found a woman unresponsive. Hubby tried to revive her and we got help. She survived, but if we hadn't been there, this lonely old lady in a ramshackle trailer would have died. Trumps program is deplorable!

[redstatebluegirl]

12. Bless you for being there for that family.

If I am able when I quit working I want to volunteer with them to give back. Provided Trump hasn't killed this vital program.

[grantcart]

9. Mulvaney's point is that the program doesn't show positive results

Had this been an effective program, I am sure he would argue, that if the Meals on Wheels was a truly effective program then they would have been there to prevent the fall.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

14. If MoW was really an effective program, why are those people hungry again

in a day or so? And why are they still old?

[grantcart]

21. If NPR was effective then they would be able to sell advertisements.

[subterranean]

40. What he means is that no corporation profits from it.

If nobody's making money off of it, then it has no value (in the view of most Republicans).

[Fast Walker 52]

27. wow, thanks-- really brings it home

[csziggy]

29. My aunt and uncle volunteered with Meals on Wheels for years and years

After my uncle was unable to drive anymore, my aunt kept waiting for someone to call from the program. She had never learned to drive so she couldn't get out to buy food or to volunteer any longer.

Not one person from the program ever called her, even after my uncle died. Because she could not shop for herself, she ended up moving in with her son in a city much larger than she had ever lived in, a couple of hundred miles away from all her friends.

While I think Meals on Wheels is a great program, I was really disappointed that the local group in that little Alabama town cared so little for long term volunteers.

[grantcart]

2. Its an attack on civilization by a thousand cuts

NPR won't go away either.

But both and hundreds of other programs will be severely diminished.

The EPA will still have a headquarters. It just isn't going to follow science.

Cut, cut, cut at the foundations of our society until we become a nations of consumers and little else.

Thanks for posting.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

15. We won't be a nation of consumers because we'll be too broke.

[DownriverDem]

31. My Plan

I'm going to fight like hell, continue to be active in my Democratic District -12th Michigan, donate money and protest this administration all the way. Yes it sucks. And the blame can be spread all around, but we must fight it now at the beginning and all the way to 2021. The polls show trump & his policies are unpopular. We must take this opportunity to win over folks who lean left, hate trump & his policies & truly want to help our country. If folks had read the Democratic Party Platform which had many of Bernie's ideas, they would have known the stark difference between the two parties. With what is going on now, you'd have to be in a coma to not see the differences now. trump is an insane mad man with some very dangerous people around him. So frustrated...

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

4. It's beyond disgusting that they would want to cut any part of MoW's budget

even though federal funds are not a large percentage of it. It operates on a shoestring as it is, and even that cut will hurt. I am just livid that these monsters want to take help away from the people who need it most - not just MoW, but funding for winter heating for the poor and Pell grants, just to name a couple more. I want to stand in front of Trump and the GOPers and just yell, "What the hell is WRONG with you??"

[pnwmom]

11. 25% according to this article -- a very significant portion of the funds. Yes, it operates

on a shoestring, thanks to the free labor of its volunteers.

[BeyondGeography]

7. Thank you

K&R

[GP6971]

8. K & R. Off to the Greatest Page!

[pnwmom]

10. Thank you!

[peggysue2]

16. Said in another thread

I've delivered Meals on Wheels. If you saw the living and health conditions of the people being served, there's no way a decent human being could pretend that cutting a program like this is anything short of callous and cruel. These are people who cannot get out because of infirmity, age or profound disability. Many are desperately poor. Some rely on the daily meal as their only nourishment. To cut an important lifeline to the weakest among us speaks volumes about what we're becoming--a society in which only the well-bodied and well-heeled matter.

The same holds true for lunch programs for poor children. These are our children, the future of who and what we may become. To deny kids nourishment in order to save a few tax dollars is stingy and short-sighted.

If a society is measured by how that society treats its weakest members then we, the United States of America, the richest, most powerful country the world has ever seen, will fail fantastically.

Shame on us. Shame on the clowns who reside in the halls of power.

Resist! With everything you have.

[KingCharlemagne]

17. Are you suggesting that the $2-3 in matching funds will

simply disappear when the Community Block Grants are eliminated? If so, what is your source for that?

[kcr]

45. Are you suggesting

That eliminating government funding for things like community block grants just isn't that big of a deal? That isn't something that progressives should care about or fight against?

Nice avatar.

[KingCharlemagne]

46. I'm a 'real' Socialist, not some pale imitation like Sanders. I was just trying to

ascertain (from the OP) whether the matching funds were actually tied to federal $ (in the sense that those matching funds disappear if the federal funding dries up). There was another OP a couple days ago arguing that the federal contribution to MoW was only 2-3% of its budget.

N.B. The OP never did respond.

As to your question about my beliefs, I don't know enough about these community block grants (within which is included the MoW funding) to say whether they are a big deal. Judging from your tone, you think they are. That's good enough for me, but I'd be interested to hear any additional thoughts you have on the matter, so as to give you the Socialist response.

[sarah FAILIN]

18. This program keeps people out of nursing homes

They may be fit enough to get around their own home, but not up to fixing a meal. Some of them will actually forget to eat. Getting rid of this would put more elderly in the nursing homes... if they were able to pay for long term care insurance. Otherwise I guess they will just starve.

[pnwmom]

20. Yes, it does. It saves the government a lot of Medicaid money in the long run. Of course,

they're planning to get rid of Medicaid, too.

[womanofthehills]

44. Keeps they out of nursing homes, but with medicaid cuts - bye bye nursing homes

two thirds of nursing home patients have medicaid.

[Doreen]

19. This is just simply hateful.

I do not think there is any reason that he has other than just being hateful and mean. He is a vile human.

[ailsagirl]

22. We know what they're attempting to do

beyond belief

[lastlib]

33. They're attempting to turn the US into North Korea.........

that's it in a nutshell.

[ailsagirl]

42. Yep

Link to tweet

[sarcasmo]

23. For many of these Seniors it's the only meal of the day.

[DownriverDem]

24. Immoral

I don't know my country anymore. I'm ashamed of my country and am so sad.

[33taw]

25. How large is this budget? 3 Million? If you add the additional matching funds - it is 12 Million

If this really passes, which I don't think it will, I think we need to fund it with small donations.

[pnwmom]

28. 3/4 of their budget already comes from non Federal sources, and thousands of volunteers are

giving their labor for free.

And it helps keep people out of Medicaid-funded nursing homes.

This is exactly the kind of thing our tax dollars should be supporting.

[33taw]

43. Of course it should, but democrats do not control that. So, if it is important we need to find

Other resources.

[smirkymonkey]

32. It's a drop in the bucket compared to the billions he wants for the military, the wall and the

tax cuts for the 1%. It's nothing. And we don't need any of those things. The military budget is bloated (except for vet care), the wall is the stupidest idea anyone ever came up with and the very rich don't need a tax cut, they need to pay more. It's sickening what they are doing.

[democratisphere]

26. This and many other drumpf destructions can't be allowed to happen.

It's time for Dems to say "NO"!

[OldRedneck]

30. My letter to the editor

I'm sending this letter to every daily and weekly newspaper that serves my deep-red rural Virginia county.

-------------------------------------------------------------

A budget is a moral document, reflecting the moral values of those who prepare the budget. The Trump Budget is a mortal sin.

The Trump Budget will cut: Meals on Wheels; free school breakfast and lunch for poor children; financial assistance to low-income college students; heating assistance to poor families; assistance to food banks; supplemental food support for pregnant women, mothers and children; medical research; aid to states for childhood vaccination programs; after-school enrichment programs for 1.6 million children . . . and much, much more.

The Trump budget guts economic development and job training programs in Appalachia – the same Appalachia that voted overwhelmingly for Trump and that will not see a resurgence in mining jobs. The Trump Budget cuts medical assistance for miners suffering from black lung.

The Trump Budget will terminate the National Endowment for the Arts while spending TWICE the NEA annual budget to keep Mrs. Trump and their son in their gold-gilded penthouse home in New York.

The Trump Budget will give $600 billion in tax cuts to the wealthiest 2% of Americans and will spend $2.2 billion on a useless “border wall” (for which Mexico was supposed to pay).

The Trump Budget spends $3,000,000 each weekend Trump flies to his Florida resort.

This budget says the White House doesn’t care about pregnant women, children, Chesapeake Bay watermen, farmers, first-time home buyers, senior citizens, the unemployed, artists, public school teachers, retired coal miners and scientists.

What part of America is going to be great again with a budget that stops investing in the country’s greatest asset — our people?

The Trump Budget does not reflect the nation I grew up in and it certainly is not the nation whose uniform I wore for almost 30 years.

[smirkymonkey]

34. Good for you!

Great letter - one thing I would add: the 54 billion going to the military so Trump can show what a tough guy he is to the rest of the world. Also, the proposed elimination of the ACA. Otherwise, it's perfect.

[UTUSN]

35. Devastating to the program, but also: A devastating blow to the *Rethugs*!1 nt

[bucolic_frolic]

36. I really think cutting Meals on Wheels is a trap

thrown out so everyone flocks to defend the program, which they should and will.

This will sap energy that should be directed at the rest of the budget guillotine targets.

[pnwmom]

38. No. They're gutting practically everything that helps the poor or working class. n/t

[tclambert]

37. But billionaires will get a tiny fraction of a percent bigger tax refund.

At least your grandparents won't have died in vain. We can all rest a little easier knowing they starved for such a worthwhile cause.

[nikibatts]

39. I delivered Meal On Wheels over the years.

My clients were disabled, elderly, and elderly bed-ridden. These cuts are going to hurt because states will put monies in other places to make up for the other cuts coming their way.

[czarjak]

41. Not to worry...

George Bush's remedy is going to kick in, "faith-based organizations will step forward to fill the void". (And he said it a straight face)