Apparently yes...
Posted on 02/10/2006 7:00:37 AM PST by Diana in Wisconsin
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush wants to eliminate a program that provides poor seniors with vegetables, peanut butter and other nutritious foods, proposing in his budget that recipients be moved to food stamps.
Critics argue that the change will leave the seniors worse off than they are now.
The Commodity Supplemental Food Program, targeted for the chopping block, provides nutritionally balanced boxes of food to about a half-million poor people on a monthly basis, including 5,000 in Wisconsin. The majority of beneficiaries are elderly, although some women and children also participate.
The Department of Agriculture, which administers the CSFP program, proposes moving recipients to food stamps starting in the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. But CSFP advocates say that many seniors are reluctant to sign up for food stamps, and that in any event, the program often provides a more generous package.
The proposal could face strong opposition on Capitol Hill.
Wisconsin Sen. Herb Kohl, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Appropriations agriculture subcommittee, said he would oppose it.
"I call it misplaced priorities. How do you justify doing something like this, while at the same time giving people like Herb Kohl huge tax cuts?" said Kohl, a multimillionaire.
"It really does come under the category, in the most extreme way, of balancing the budget on the backs of those who are most needy. And in this case we're not even balancing the budget."
Congress funded about $111 million for the program in the current fiscal year, including a $4 million supplement for victims of Hurricane Katrina.
The CSFP program, which dates back to 1968, operates in 32 states and the District of Columbia. Its lack of national reach is one reason the administration wants to eliminate it, according to USDA officials.
Kate Coler, the USDA's deputy under secretary for Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services, said the department believes it can serve people more efficiently through food stamps and the Women, Infants and Children program, which are both nationwide.
"It's really a duplicative program," she said of CSFP.
Recipients of CSFP boxes receive powdered milk, vegetables, cereal, juice, meat, fruit, protein (peanut butter or beans), starch (such as dehydrated potatoes, rice or pasta) and cheese.
Sherrie Tussler, executive director of the Hunger Task Force, which administers the program in Milwaukee, estimated that the monthly box provides about five to seven meals.
"It helps stretch their food-buying budget," she said. "Sometimes seniors are choosing between utility bills and prescription drugs and whether they get to eat."
Tussler said that the program may be duplicative to food stamps, but that many seniors need both. The Bush administration proposes providing CSFP beneficiaries with transitional food stamp benefits of $20 a month for six months, or until they are determined eligible for food stamps, whichever comes first.
Sarah Mayek, 75, of Milwaukee, receives both the CSFP box and $10 a month for food stamps.
"You try to stretch your budget a little bit," Mayek said. Without CSFP, she said, "I would have to adjust. But I raised 11 children. I know how to cut corners."
Tim Robertson, president of the National CSFP Association, which represents state and local organizations that administer the program, challenged the USDA's premise that people will switch over to food stamps.
"Seniors have repeatedly said they don't want to be on that program," Robertson said, because of the perceived stigma of using food stamps and the paperwork hassles.
The USDA's own statistics show that just 28 percent of seniors eligible for food stamps participate in the program.
Jean Daniel, a spokeswoman for the USDA's Food and Nutrition Service, said the organization is working to remove the perceived stigma. For example, she said, the agency is getting the word out that food stamp payments are now made by an electronic transfer card, not actual stamps.
"We try to make the point that this is not a welfare program, this is a nutritional assistance program," she said.
I have an idea. Why don't her 11 children provide her with some food? I would (and do) gladly donate monthly to my church to provide some assistance to the poor - which is how those whose families are unable or unwilling to help could be helped if this program were eliminated.
Liberals want to be charitable with my $$$
Women and children affected worst.
If there's no more government cheese, what will we eat in our van down by the river?
Precisely because people have ceded that responsibility to the government. That's how it is in Europe, and that's why thousands of elderly die in heat waves in France.
Now, don't pick on Grandpa Simpson! When his girlfriend died and he inherited $106,000.00 from her (for a month-long romance, LOL!) he took that money and upgraded his Retirement Facility.
Plus, he's a WWII Veteran. And his radical ex-wife left him for The Weather Underground, and good riddance. :)
(I think I watch too many Simpson episodes if I know that much about a fictional character just off the top of my head, LOL!)
Then why don't you use your money to start a charity instead of making me use money I don't have to fund it? Dumbass.
"While we're on the subject, why do we have so many freaking welfare programs?"
Ask Lyndon Baines Johnson, father of "The Great Society." He introduced the expensive and inefficient social programs we're stuck with today in the mid-to-late 1960's.
"Anyone have an idea how much money they must cost to just administrate?"
Don't know the exact figures, but I've heard Rush say time and again that social spending constitutes SIXTY PERCENT of our national budget. Gawd!
Oh, cry me a river. Mr. Kohl, nobody's forcing you to take a tax cut that you don't want.
If you want more of your money to go to the federal government, it's easy to do. Just write out a check for that amount, make it payable to the "United States Treasury", and mail it to the IRS. You can do that any time you want, nobody will stop you, and the IRS will take it.
And .. the logic is these people "don't want to sign up for food stamps" ..?? Good grief! Are people that spoiled?
Apparently yes...
Please! I'm TRYING to eat my lunch, LOL!
Yeah. He's a real piece of work, too. Much more dangerous than Kohl, though, as Kohl is asleep at the wheel 99% of the time.
What is it with JUNIOR Senators from our states? (Wisconsin and New York, and...) They're all commies!
Back then people took care of their relatives, mom and/or dad lived with their children. That is why they had so many back then, so they could share the burden of taking care of the old folks. You could afford a house that was big enough to put the folks up because you weren't taxed out of it. Lot's of things need to change if we go back to the way things should be.
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