Budget Cuts Potentially Impacting Meals on Wheels

CBS News correspondent Michelle Miller asked Deshazer. “The president said he was going to go after wasteful programs, duplicative programs, programs that simply don’t work, and a lot of those are in HUD”, Mick Mulvaney, director of the Office of Management and Budget within the Executive Office of the president, told reporters.

Jones has been delivering food for Meals on Wheels for almost 10 years, and said the service helps nearly 1,000 older Iowans across the Des Moines Metro. I think it’s safe to say that by literally delivering meals, they’re delivering on on that promise.

White House officials question the effectiveness of programs such as Meals on Wheels.

It’s money-savvy, too: As the group points out, less-fragile elderly people means fewer falls – which, according to the CDC, wound up costing Medicare more than $31 billion in 2015. She said cutting the National Endowment for the Arts is devastating.

The program is carried out by a mere 20 paid employees and 125 volunteers.

“Meals on Wheels sounds great”.

“This really helps. It is meals that are prepared already, ready to go”.

There are an additional 200 clients in Ann Arbor that could also be impacted by cuts proposed by the new presidential administration.

“The food prep has ended for the day and volunteers are picking up the thousands of meals to be delivered for lunch”. That move was quickly denounced by both conservative and liberal politicians and activists, and many outraged people made a decision to donate time and money to Meals on Wheels in response.

“It’s nifty. Without the meals I don’t think I could of done it because I cook – and I like to cook – but sometimes I just don’t want to. We got out every creek and hollow”, Sutherland said.

In one form or another, senior citizens in Greater Lafayette have long had access to a meals on wheels program. With surgery scheduled for Monday, the 61-year-old Lancaster city resident said she plans to stop using the program once she recovers and is more mobile. One such cut could be to Community Services Block Grant. The budget doesn’t specify how that cut would impact the program’s funding, but the assumption is it isn’t good. The act’s 2016 budget was about $834 million.

“You can raise taxes or you can increase the deficit or you can get the funding from other programs that may be less critical (than national security) to the federal government’s functions”, Flores said. Half of the San Francisco agency’s $14 million annual budget comes from government funding.

“The president knows who his voters are”, Mulvaney said, arguing that the budget demonstrates “compassion”.

Kaufman says just the prospect of cuts is making some lawyers on the team very nervous.