That’s what happened in the press this week. The New York Times got things rolling by reporting that the new budget proposes “the complete elimination of the $3 billion Community Development Block Grant program, which funds popular programs like Meals on Wheels, housing assistance and other community assistance efforts.”
CNN’s Jake Tapper then boiled it down to a tweet: “On chopping block: $3 billion Community Development Block Grant program, which funds programs like Meals on Wheels.”
The NYT and Tapper are wrong, something that even a moderately curious person might easily check by simply going to the Meals on Wheels website.
http://www.mealsonwheelsamerica.org/national/financialsOver at Mother Jones, a progressive website, they call the media spin on this portion of the proposed Trump budget “ridiculous” and lay out exactly why it is so.
http://m.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2017/03/mealsHere’s what really happened:
The Department of Housing and Urban Development runs a program called Community Development Block Grants. It’s exactly what it sounds like. It provides funds to states that they can use for a variety of approved purposes.
Last year, the Obama administration recommended cutting its budget from $3 billion to $2.8 billion.
This year, Mulvaney proposed that the program be eliminated entirely. Here’s what the Trump budget has to say about it:
Eliminates funding for the Community Development Block Grant program, a savings of $3 billion from the 2017 annualized CR level. The Federal Government has spent over $150 billion on this block grant since its inception in 1974, but the program is not well-targeted to the poorest populations and has not demonstrated results. The Budget devolves community and economic development activities to the State and local level, and redirects Federal resources to other activities.
