Donald Trump to Hungry Seniors: Drop Dead

[Cattledog]

The budget sent to Congress Tuesday for fiscal year 2018 puts the country’s schizophrenia over feeding hungry citizens back on the agenda — this time in the guise of defunding food programs for seniors, millions of whom are homebound, ill and unable to cook or shop. In March, the Trump administration announced it was slashing federal funds for those programs, meaning that more seniors will go hungry, and waiting lists — already numbering in the thousands in some parts of the country — will get larger. The wait for a meal will get longer, too, leaving thousands of seniors, including those just discharged from a hospital, with few options for nutritious food.

As the number of seniors has increased, so has the number of people, particularly the very old, who need food. Yet over the years, increases in federal funding — funneled primarily through the Older Americans Act, which accounts for about 35 percent of the budgets of the nation’s roughly 5,000 meal programs — have not kept pace with the need, as I reported for The Nation in 1998 and 2013.

This year, the Trump budget calls for real cuts in food programs for seniors, not just smaller increases. Erika Kelly, the government affairs officer for Meals on Wheels America, an umbrella organization for the Meals on Wheels network, says the network is already serving 23 million fewer meals than in 2005, a decline that has resulted in an increase in hunger. Today some 10 million elders are threatened by hunger, a 65 percent increase over the past decade.

Apparently, numbers like those don’t bother Trump budget director Mick Mulvaney. As the budget was unveiled, Mulvaney remarked, “This is the first time, I think, in a long time that an administration has written a budget through the eyes of the people who are actually paying the taxes. We’re not going to measure our success by how much money we spend but by how many people we actually help.” And at his March news conference, Mulvaney disdainfully told reporters Meals on Wheels didn’t help the people it was designed to serve. “Meals on Wheels sounds great,” but “to take that federal money and give it to the states, and say, ‘Look, we want to give you money for programs that don’t work’ — I can’t defend that anymore.”

http://billmoyers.com/story/donald-trump-hungry-seniors-drop-dead/

[imanamerican63]

1. He'll have a heart attack from being such as @$$!

Or from eating to many of his fat steaks!

[shenmue]

2. Fuck Trump

[FakeNoose]

3. I think their plan is to throw it all on the states

Each state will have to fund its own Meals on Wheels and School Lunch programs and some states will, others won't.

They're still going to get the money from the federal government though.
This is so stupid and short-sighted.

[global1]

4. Maybe Those States That Won't Fund MOW Will Be....

those states that have Repug Guv's. Hopefully - this will cause the people to vote them out and the Dem's in.

[MiddleClass]

5. Monster Mulvaney strikes again

Feeding seniors is not working,

affordable healthcare is not working,

school lunches are not working,

public schools are not working,

Medicaid for the least among us is not working,

next is Social Security, the new deal, back to the roaring twenties, do not mention what that led to


the man's a monster, the whole Donald Trump administration is a monster, Mike Pence and Paul Ryan are monsters. Heartless bastards

[onecent]

6. Nice Post. Welcome to DU

And then I think that Drump IS A SENIOR.......

I am glad I didn't vote for him!!!

[trueblue2007]

7. Makes me cry

[sarah FAILIN]

8. He is also taking their part time jobs funding..434 million dollars..

It's his solution for Social Security, starve them to death and put them on the streets.

ELIMINATION: SENIOR COMMUNITY SERVICE EMPLOYMENT PROGRAM
Department of Labor
The Budget proposes to eliminate the Senior Community Service Employment Program (SCSEP). SCSEP
is ineffective in its goal of transitioning seniors into unsubsidized employment.

Justification
SCSEP distributes grants to States and public and private non-profit organizations to provide part-time
work experience in community service activities to unemployed low-income persons ages 55 and over.
While the program provides some income support to about 68,000 individuals each year, it fails to meet
its other major statutory goals of fostering economic self-sufficiency and moving low-income seniors into
unsubsidized employment. In program year 2015 (the most recent year for which data are available), the
program placed less than half of participants in unsubsidized jobs and that excludes as many as one-third
of individuals who fail to complete the program. With costs of almost $6,500 per participant, it is not a
cost-effective mechanism to facilitate community service among older adults. The goal of supporting the
self-sufficiency and employment of older workers can continue to be addressed through the Workforce
Elimination of Senior citizens part time jobsELIMINATION: SENIOR COMMUNITY SERVICE EMPLOYMENT PROGRAM Department of LaborThe Budget proposes to eliminate the Senior Community Service Employment Program (SCSEP). SCSEP is ineffective in its goal of transitioning seniors into unsubsidized employment.JustificationSCSEP distributes grants to States and public and private non-profit organizations to provide part-time work experience in community service activities to unemployed low-income persons ages 55 and over.While the program provides some income support to about 68,000 individuals each year, it fails to meet its other major statutory goals of fostering economic self-sufficiency and moving low-income seniors into unsubsidized employment. In program year 2015 (the most recent year for which data are available), the program placed less than half of participants in unsubsidized jobs and that excludes as many as one-third of individuals who fail to complete the program. With costs of almost $6,500 per participant, it is not a cost-effective mechanism to facilitate community service among older adults. The goal of supporting the self-sufficiency and employment of older workers can continue to be addressed through the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) programs.

Page 65
https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/omb/budget/fy2018/msar.pdf

[George II]

9. Reminds me of this NY Daily News front page regarding Gerald Ford:

[SergeStorms]

10. "Are there no poor houses"?

"But many would rather die than go there."

"If they would rather die, then they had better do it soon, and decrease the surplus population". (Spoken by Ebenezer Trump)
- A Christmas Carol (sort of) by Charles Dickens -

Trump would fit perfectly into the role of Scrooge. Trump isn't smart enough to mend his ways, though.

I hope the s.o.b. is visited by three spirits, only THIS time the spirit of the future would take Ebenezer Trump with him, never to be seen again.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

11. Mulvaney is telling the truth:

Mulvaney remarked, “This is the first time, I think, in a long time that an administration has written a budget through the eyes of the people who are actually paying the taxes. We’re not going to measure our success by how much money we spend but by how many people we actually help.”

He's laying out right there for all to see. The tRump regime wants to reduce the money spent AND reduce the number of people helped.

[liberalhistorian]

12. You'd think, since so many of them voted for him,

that he'd at least choose ONE group of his supporters, beyond the one percent, that he's not going to fuck over and throw under the bus.

Most of the seniors I know who voted for him won't blame him and the repubs, anyway, it'll be, as usual, the fault of the Dems or Obama, no matter how many facts they're presented with. It never fails to amaze me that the party that gave seniors their security net in the first place, and that fought so hard to implement and maintain it, is trashed and denigrated while the party that fought so hard against it and is so determined to destroy it is favored.

[GeoWilliam750]

13. It is easier to fool somebody

Than it is to convince them that they have been fooled.

Many times on DU, we collectively lament that so many of the Republican voters so persistently vote against what we perceive to be their interests (nothing new here in world history - been happening in one form or another for millenia). So many have become deliberately low information voters, having listened to Fox and right wing radio, etc., for so long that it is physically difficult to hear anything different.

To all appearances they have been thoroughly duped, but telling them so does not often have them seeing the light. Sometimes I wonder whether putting it in terms of something like, "There is no shame in being fooled by Fox, who are possibly the single most effective propaganda tool in the world. To mentally stand up to them would be like asking a good high school football team to take on the Patriots."

Just a thought.