Another $3 million trip to Mar-a-Lago. How many Meals on Wheels could you get for $3 million?

[Miles Archer]

Link to tweet

[dalton99a]

1. Excellent comparison.

[democratisphere]

2. Says everything about the lack of character of this piece of garbage.

[Achilleaze]

3. Freaking Republicans squandering our tax money

So their republican draft dodger can play golf using our money

Deplorable

[BlueSpot]

5. Where is the presidential budget?

Is there even one?

I never even thought of this before. I guess I never needed to.

[Miles Archer]

7. I don't know, but...

...I saw a story today that said Trump is on track to spend as much on travel in one year as Obama spent on eight.

[csziggy]

6. In 2015 Meals on Wheels got less than a quarter of a million dollars from government grants

Despite expressions of alarm on social media, killing the community block grant program would most likely not kill Meals on Wheels. The financial statements from 2015 show that such grants amounted to just under $250,000, or about 3 percent of the total revenue for the program’s national resource center. More than 85 percent came from corporate, foundation and personal donations. Clearly, federal funding for the national program office isn’t the linchpin for its success.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/17/upshot/the-cost-can-be-debated-but-meals-on-wheels-gets-results.html

Cutting that amount won't kill the program but the insult is that the amount Dolt45 wastes every weekend traveling to his "Southern White House" would allow funding of many of the programs that are being cut without regard to how useful and valuable they are to this country.

[Miles Archer]

8. 52 weekend trips to Mar-a-Lago, $156 million, versus feeding 56,420 seniors for one year

$2765 to feed one senior for a year, according to this:

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/this-is-how-much-it-costs-meals-on-wheels-to-feed-one-elderly-person-for-a-year-2017-03-16

This is how much it costs ‘Meals on Wheels’ to feed one elderly person for a year

Published: Mar 17, 2017 11:03 a.m. ET

“Meals on Wheels America,” one such national meal delivery program, says the organization can provide meals for senior citizens for one year for roughly the same cost as just one day in a hospital. The annual meal cost is $2,765 for 250 days (while the cost of one day in the hospital is around $2,271, according to the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit, private operating foundation based in Menlo Park, Calif.). “Meals on Wheels People,” a Portland, Ore.-based service and one of the largest in the country, says it costs $2,500 annually to provide daily meals to a homebound senior, while cost of institutional care for a year in Oregon is around $60,000.

[csziggy]

10. Or how many meals for school kids?

The cuts that are getting the publicity are a drop in the federal budget - if Trump stayed in Washington DC for a year ALL the ones that are making the headlines could be budgeted. NEA, CPB, Meals on Wheels, and more.

Heck, if we got rid of Trump and his wasteful ways, that would save enough to DOUBLE their budgets.

[Princess Turandot]

11. Nope! That's just the 990 for the *national* Meals on Wheels of America...

It includes no meal delivery costs, because they primarily provide organizational resources to community/local MOWs and represent the 'brand', via outreach and education: they don't do actual program work. The individual MOWs are all separate organizations which do their own financial reporting. It is not at all uncommon for these types of social services charities to be completely run locally, especially where they rely extensively on local donations and/or volunteerism.

One news source reported these numbers as all MoW activity and the rest just keep repeating it. If you don't believe me, do a reality test: the 990/audited financial statements that they linked to show total revenues of $7.5 million. That can't possibly support tens of millions of meals for people being delivered daily. See post 8 above: at a cost of $2,765 for 250 days, or $11 a day, $7.5 million provides meals for 682,000 people. The largest NYC MoW, Citymeals, alone reported $20 million of revenues in 2015.

[csziggy]

12. You are right - I didn't read far enough into the article

They do not give an exact figure but here is the more relevant part:

Public funds at the local level, however, are more substantial, and Meals on Wheels gets much more funding through a different federal program. The nutrition programs of the Older Americans Act support the Meals on Wheels chapters as they actually operate on the ground, and about 30 percent of the expense of home-delivered meals is covered by federal sources.

A cut to this program would have a far more significant effect, especially since that support had been decreasing even before the new budget was considered. The Trump budget calls for a 17.9 percent cut in funding for this program’s parent agency, the Department of Health and Human Services, and it is quite possible Meals on Wheels could be affected. We won’t know until H.H.S. finalizes its budget.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/17/upshot/the-cost-can-be-debated-but-meals-on-wheels-gets-results.html

Sorry, I screwed up.

[MFM008]

9. he has to be stopped, somehow

you dont go around starving old people.
My mom is in a nursing home due to a severe fall in January.
so many of those old people are very thin.
To thin. My moms lunch was one slice of pizza and a small amount of cole slaw and watered down juice.
She lost 30 pounds in a month.
Thats IN a nursing home, imagine all the ones at home, shut in or bed bound.

[Beacool]

13. It makes me sick to think of it.

My neighbor passed away last May at 98. She relied on meals on wheels because she was not up to cooking anymore. She had enough money to be able to pay for them, but they were still pretty cheap (I think that she said that they were only a bit over $3 per meal). Some people paid less because they couldn't afford to pay the full price. I fear for those people, many who don't have enough money or can't make their meals and have no one near them to cook for them. My neighbor had a daughter nearby who brought her meals too and I would share some of my cooking with her. She had a sweet tooth and I would always share with her any sweets I bought or baked. I miss Alice, she was my buddy.

[milestogo]

14. He thinks his life is worth more than everybody elses.

But he is just a pile of dogshit.