GREEN BAY (WLUK) — Some Meals on Wheels programs could see a cut in federal funding, that’s if President Trump’s budget proposals are passed.
Devon Christianson, the Director of Brown County’s Homebound Meals Program, spoke to WLUK.
“We do cognitive dining and we do home delivered meals. We pack them ourselves and deliver them out to about 500 people a day”
Christianson says although the program receives federal funding, the money does not come from the Community Development Block Grant.
The CDBG is a $3 billion program President Donald Trump is proposing to eliminate in his 2018 budget.
The grant funds anti-poverty programs like Meals on Wheels.
Christianson says although the CDBG doesn’t fund the Homebound Meals Program, any federal cuts could be detrimental.
“We do a whole lot more than meals, so across the board reduction in federal dollars is something that is a great concern to us”
Wisconsin’s U.S. Senators have differing views on President Trump’s budget proposal.
In a statement, Republican Senator Ron Johnson says:
“The president’s budget is the first serious attempt by any White House since I’ve been serving to rein in the out-of-control federal government by providing budget discipline to departments and agencies. The general direction of this budget focuses on what should be the top priority of the federal government – national defense and homeland security – while protecting the hard-earned dollars of American taxpayers. No two people will agree on every program cut or expansion, and I look forward to working to balance fiscal discipline with what is in the overall best interest of Wisconsin and America.”
Democratic Senator Tammy Baldwin also released a statement saying:
“Community Development Block Grants help fund local development initiatives in the Fox Valley that support jobs. It also provides senior citizen care and helps support state and local Meals-on-Wheels services which seniors rely on. President Trump is wrong to eliminate this program and I will fight in the Senate against these cuts to a program that makes a difference in the lives of so many families in Wisconsin.”
Christianson adds…..”We want to really make sure that they aren’t alarmed or feeling that this is for certain, that there is going to be a major cut and these programs won’t be available”
Christianson explained she will have to see how the budget works out, because she says right now, it’s too soon to say how programs in Brown County would be affected.
