Federal food program cuts seniors who live in poverty

[rainbow4321]

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/DN-food_06met.ART0.North.Edition2.90f60cd.html

More than 700 Dallas County senior citizens living in poverty have been cut from a federal program that provided them with 25-pound boxes of free groceries each month. The local seniors were among 59,000 people nationwide who lost assistance from the Commodity Supplemental Food Program on Feb. 1.


"The reality of the situation is, people are going to fall through the cracks," said Jan Pruitt, the local food bank's chief executive officer. "They're going to go pick up their box, and it's not going to be there, and they're not going to go anywhere else."

The U.S. Department of Agriculture reduced the program because of rising food costs and budget cuts, spokeswoman Jean Daniel said. About 477,000 elderly people and women with children in 32 states and the District of Columbia now receive the food boxes, down from 536,000 in 2005. The only other Texas county to participate is Webb.

The federal government encourages people dropped from the program to apply for other federal nutrition programs, including food stamps.

[MADem]

1. Yeah, apply for food stamps, so they can turn ya down for those, too!!!

Cat food on special....

Absolute BASTARDS. The measure of a society is how well they take care of their young and their aged. We are failing.

[Trevelyan]

2. We need to organize to fight the latest example of "Compassionate"Conserva

to deny the basic survival needs of the "Salt of the Earth", "the least of these my brethren" So angry about the recent cuts to aid for children, the elderly and the mentally ill. We need to organize questions to the churches who say they are pro-life.

[Dunvegan]

3. Holy cow! Is this the 6th, 7th, or 8th rat bastard move they've made...

...just today?

You know, is it really going to be possible to keep up with the destruction of the middle class and America as we have known it?

[boobooday]

4. Ah, but the GOP has a compassionate reform plan

To help the starving elderly.

Bush's new "Food Savings Accounts" will allow them to stash cans of baked beans "tax free," until they are old and destitute and really need them.

There, that solves the problem.

[politicat]

5. I predict an upswing in pellagra and beriberi in the elderly....

Ramen is cheap - $0.10 cents a package - and $10 can feed one for a month at a minimum level... but they are highly deficient in protein, vitamins and minerals as well as being high in sodium and repetitive.

Where malnutrition goes, so follows death and disease.