The "trump is gutting meal on wheels budget" is a blatant example of fake news

First, some background. Trump's proposed budget called for a cut to the community development block grant progam (CDBGP), which is scandal plagued, and riddled with pork issues. How does this relate to meal on wheels? Because a TINY portion of the grant money is used by some states and localities (It is at their discretion) towards the meal on wheel program.

IBD.com spells out the paranoia and falsehoods

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A statement issued by Meals on Wheels America on Thursday notes that 35% of the revenues at the 5,000 or so local Meals on Wheels programs come via the Older Americans Act Nutrition Program.

Trump's budget outline says nothing about this program whatsoever.

What Trump's budget does propose is cutting is the corruption-prone Community Development Block Grant program, run out of Housing and Urban Development. Some, but not all, state and local governments use a tiny portion of that grant money, at their own discretion, to "augment funding for Meals on Wheels," according to the statement.

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Nevertheless, when the New York Times reported on Trump's budget last Wednesday, they dispensed with such details, and simply said that CDBG "funds popular programs like Meals on Wheels, housing assistance and other community assistance efforts."

This misleading shorthand quickly turned into "Trump wants to kill Meals on Wheels."

Time magazine, for example, blared that Trump's budget "would kill a program that feeds 2.4 million senior citizens." The Hill said it "eliminates funds for Meals on Wheels." A local Dallas station reported that the program would lose "all of its federal funding." Others claimed — falsely — that Trump's budget director said Meals on Wheels wasn't worth funding because it didn't get results.

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When the actual facts started to emerge over the weekend, the fake story had already taken hold in the popular press and on social media.

So what's really going on?

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As Meals on Wheels America explained, some Community Development Block Grant money does end up going to some of the local Meals on Wheels programs.

But it's a small amount. HUD's own website shows that just 1% of CDBG grant money goes to the broad category of "senior services." And 0.17% goes to "food banks."

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We looked at several local Meals on Wheels programs and found that block grant money was often a pittance, and as often as not the programs got no CDBG money from their local governments.

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Last year, for example, Rockland County, N.Y., sent $25,000 of its CDBG money to its local Meals on Wheels program — which amounted to less than 1% of that program's budget.

Kennewick, Wash., directed $18,500 in CDBG funds to Senior Life Resources' Meals on Wheels program in 2015, a year in which the charity got $13.3 million in total government grants.

Fairfield, Calif., gave its local Meals on Wheels $10,539 of CDBG money in 2015, after giving it $0 for the previous four years.

Meals on Wheels of Trenton, N.J., asked for $50,000 in community grant money last year, and got nothing. It received no grant money the year before, either.

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All of this information was easily available to anyone reporting on this story, or anyone commenting on it, which would have prevented the false claims about the Meals on Wheels program from spreading in the first place. But why bother reporting facts when you can make up a story that will drive Trump's approval ratings even lower, even if it means needlessly scaring seniors?

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As it turns out, however, this fake budget-cutting story ended up revealing how programs like Meals on Wheels can survive without federal help.

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As soon as the story started to spread, donations began pouring into Meals on Wheels. In two days, the charity got more than $100,000 in donations — 50 times more than they'd normally receive. Clearly, individuals are ready, willing and eager to support this program once they perceive a need.

Isn't this how charity is supposed to work, with people donating their own time, money and resources to causes they feel are important, rather than sitting back and expecting the federal government to do it for them?

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Summary:

1)98.93% of Meal on wheel budget funds come from private donations + the old Americans nutrion program, which was not even touched in trump budget.

2)Verified checkmark twitter twits (many employed by wapo and nyt), without doing any research whatsoever, began to spread the falsehood that because the corrupt CDBGP was being cut (which in some discretionary instances is given to MOW programs), it amounted to trump cutting the MOW program.


3) MOW spokes-people were able to gain an additional 100,000 dollars from outraged liberals who beleived the lie that the program was being cut from budget.

LINK