Fact checker: Nancy Pelosi’s absurd math on senior citizens losing their meals

[alp227]

“In one of the bills before us, 6 million seniors are deprived of meals — homebound seniors are deprived of meals. People ask us to find our common ground, the middle ground. Is middle ground 3 million seniors not receiving meals? I don't think so. We've got to take this conversation from a debate about numbers and dollar figures and finding middle ground there to the higher ground of national values. I don't think the American people want any one of those 6 million people to lose their meals or the children who are being thrown off of Head Start and the rest of it.”

— House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), April 4, 2011



The day before House Republicans unveiled their long-term budget plan, one-time House Speaker Pelosi held an event with the Hunger Fast Coalition to draw attention to the budget cuts envisioned in the fiscal 2011 budget bill that passed the House earlier this year. The White House and the Senate have been engaged in tense discussions with House leaders over a compromise deal in an effort to avoid a government shutdown later this week.

Pelosi’s impassioned plea signifies her discomfort at even the thought of compromise. But several readers wondered about the figures she used. Are 6 million poor seniors really at risk of losing their meals — or even 3 million under the compromise plan being negotiated by President Obama?

full story: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/nancy_pelosis_absurd_math_on_senior_citizens_losing_their_meals/2011/04/06/AFUf51rC_blog.html

[aquart]

1. Wow. Not even 3 million will go hungry.

Sure not worth a fuss, is it?

Unless you recently sat with your sick mother while she showed you the pills she planned to use if she were ever helpless, alone, and unable to feed herself. We had a really bad winter and it's our family miracle that my mom is up and cooking and driving and doing stuff again. But she always had us and it was never going to get to that point.

There are too many other seniors who don't have family they can depend on. Well, since nobody loves them, let's let them go. It'll be cost effective. Any good corporation would do it.

[FiveGoodMen]

2. Who's motherfucking side are you...

screw it

[Judi Lynn]

16. I was shocked seeing this here, as well. WTF, anyway? Boo, hiss. n/t

[JuniperLea]

3. Perhaps she combined all of the hungry...

Seniors, children, mothers of infant children, homeless, etc. But looking at it that way, the number is probably too low to cover all those people.

[Vincardog]

4. Speaking of compromise plans, the Democrats have compromised and given over 40 BILLION in cuts. How

much in tax increases for the rich have the baggers given?

[freshwest]

14. Only a few trillion. But what's that between friends?

[FSogol]

5. Why post a RW smear on Pelosi? I'll take mistakes from Pelosi over crap from Ryan and the Paul

morans.

[alp227]

11. Glenn Kessler is far from a right-wing smearmongerer

he's the "fact checker" columnist for the washington post as he analyzes the "reality behind the rhetoric" from politicians regardless of affiliation.

Kessler has also criticized Paul Ryan's budget, found that Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz exaggerated a debt figure, etc.

Do you have any information that Kessler is wrong re Pelosi? Attack the idea, not the speaker.

[ProSense]

6. This is complete bullshit.

The piece mentions the 2011 budget, which is what is being debated, and links to the FY 2012 budget. The two budgets have different numbers.

How the hell does anyone know if this is accurate or what Pelosi based her statement on?

[Peregrine Took]

7. I smell a rat......

On the OP - not you! You I agree with!!

[Citizen Worker]

8. It's the typical republicon cost/benefit analysis straw man. At bottom though what's really at work

is the capitalist maxim that if you fail to create a surplus the individual no longer represents anything of value, value being money. Put another way, when it becomes more to keep an individual fed, clothed, sheltered and medically cared for than the individual produces that person or persons become a burden and therefore are expendable. The end result of Ronnie Raygun's trickle down economics.

[monmouth]

9. Notice came out today no new applicants for senior services (lunch).

New applicants need to call "Meals on Wheels." I don't partake but this is usually the main meal of the day for many living here. "Due to budget cuts."

[freshwest]

15. Oh, yeah, but the OP says no problem!

[Scuba]

10. The new plan calls for crumbs to "trickle down" from the table where the wealthy....

...dine, for all the "lesser people" to fight over.

[NothingRight]

12. Pelosi exaggerates, but concern is valid

Nancy Pelosi is every bit as much of a democratic apologist as Rush Limbaugh is a conservative apologist, but the over dramatizing on this point has merits beneath the surface.

One of the programs that would be in jeopardy in the GOP magic cutting party is a program called "Meals on Wheels", a service that provides meals to home bound seniors at a very low cost, because the program has federal subsidies.

For some communities, this may not be a big impact. I work in Sun City, Arizona, in senior healthcare, and I can tell you that Meals on Wheels is a big deal here. We recommend it to people daily, and a large number of our clients are on it.

Would the nationwide number be 6 million? Probably not, but with the baby boomer generation aging, whatever that number is now will grow dramatically in the next few years.

Pelosi would argue the sky is yellow if the DCCC made it part of the platform, but that doesn't mean we should automatically dismiss everything the says.

[bhikkhu]

13. Well, numbers aren't really the point after all

So what if its not 6 million, what if was only 100 thousand? That's so much better, right? Just sit for a minute and try imagine what the number would mean, what a hundred thousand hungry people would look like...

That we would extend the tax cuts for the rich and then even consider turning around and cutting food assistance for the poor is cruel, and not something a kind nation would ever do.