A couple weeks ago when the Trump administration released their proposed 2018 budget, lefties were so distraught the headlines may as well have been screaming “Trump steals from Meals on Wheels!” CBS went with: “Trump voter who uses Meals on Wheels surprised by proposed cuts.” Gasp! Given the fake news that the mainstream media has been burping out lately, none of us should be surprised anymore that that’s a deliberately deceitful headline.
 
CBS could have disabused that poor Trump voter of her misconception – but what fun would that be? The truth is, Meals on Wheels isn’t even a federal program. A simple way to verify that is to “google” the organization and check out the huge variety of logos ~
 
 
There are thousands of individual local programs across the country. Heck, “Meals on Wheels” isn’t even limited to the U.S.~
 
 

If CBS was actually interested in the facts, they could have checked with Investors’ Business Daily and learned that what Trump’s budget does propose is…

… cutting 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 […]
 
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.”

(And for that insignificant amount, the media is predicting starvation for untold numbers of senior citizens across the country. )
 

The 5,000 or so local Meals on Wheels programs get 35% of the revenues via the Older Americans Act Nutrition Program, which isn’t even mentioned in the proposed budget. And, as Anna L. Stark – who happens to volunteer at Meals on Wheels – explains at the American Thinker, the rest of the funding comes from local community budgets and donations ~

It’s important to note that not all MOW kitchens receive these funds, as I found out when I visited with the fund developer where I volunteer. As a matter of fact, the MOW kitchen in my city receives absolutely no community block grant funding. It does receive about 7% of its annual funding from a local non-profit community group that raises funds year round and then portions out those funds to numerous non-profits across the city. The rest (93%) of the MOW annual budget is derived from the direct sales of meals, private donors, corporate grants, food vendors (who donate food/funds or both), and an annual, local fund raising event during the December holiday season.

But despite the MSM stories being unrecognizable from the real truth of the matter, gullible low-information voters – many of whom are always quick to believe the worst about those evil Republicans (especially Trump) – fell for the Wheels’ spin. So much so that they flooded local programs with donations ~

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.

 
Was that the outcome the progressive media was aiming for all along? I doubt it. They aren’t really that goal-oriented. Their main focus is just to demonize the right. They don’t necessarily care about helping the needy (or they’d put more resources into teaching people to fish, not passing out cans of tuna). But the spontaneous contributions do demonstrate one very important principle, as IBD points out ~

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?

That’s how it used to work in America anyway.

 
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Related:
The Meals On Wheels Lie Keeps Rolling Along
Outrage on Wheels
Meals on Wheels: Anatomy of a Fake Budget Cut ~

All that Trump proposed, as part of his plan to shift some spending from the domestic budget to the defense budget, is to shut down a pork-riddled and scandal-plagued program at the Department of Housing Development. However, because a tiny fraction of community development block grants get used for Meals on Wheels, interest groups and leftist journalists decided to concoct a story about hungry old people.