Matthew 25:35: “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat.”

Move along. Not in this budget, buddy.

The current tenant at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue has sent his initial budget proposal to the Congress. There is much to talk about, but one example epitomizes the callousness that permeates the whole.

Meals on Wheels is not a federal program. It is funded from several sources, with one of the contributors being the federal government, in some cases through block grants to individual states.

Nationwide, Meals on Wheels, a non-profit group relying primarily on volunteers, serves hot meals each year to 2.4 million senior citizens between the ages of 60 to over 100 years. According to the organization, the recipients “are primarily older than 60, and because of physical limitations, or financial reasons, have difficulty shopping for or preparing meals for themselves.”

This didn’t cut any mustard with Mick Mulvaney, #45’s budget chief, who recently defended cuts to the Community Development Block Grant program, where some of the Meals on Wheels funding comes from, on the grounds that the program is “just not showing any results.”

Disregard for the moment that while Mr. Mulvaney carries the title “budget chief,” he was apparently laboring under the misapprehension that major federal funding for the Meals on Wheels program comes from CDBG sources. Actually, the major federal funding source is through the Administration for Community Living, an agency of the Department of Health and Human Service, which has a $227 million line item for “home-delivered nutrition services,” according to published reports in USA Today.

Regardless of the funding source, a literal reading of Mr. Mulvaney’s remarks indicate his assertion remains the same. Meals on Wheels is “just not showing any results.”

As is happening all too often with this new administration, inconvenient facts have a way of contradicting the official narrative – at least on Meals on Wheels.

As reported in the Washington Post, a 2013 study concluded that home-delivered meals for seniors “significantly improves diet quality, increases nutrient intakes, and reduces food insecurity and nutritional risk among participants.” Moreover, for many homebound seniors, daily contact with Meals on Wheels volunteers is the main contact recipients have with the society beyond their front doors.

Beyond the touchy-feely nonsense, in this new dawn of non-military spending austerity, what’s the business case for continuing to mollycoddle these non-contributing parasites who have not yet had the decency to die?

How about this, again from the study, as reported in the Post article?

“These programs are also aligned with the federal cost-containment policy to rebalance long-term care away from nursing homes to home and community-based services by helping older adults maintain independence and remain in their homes and communities as their health and functioning decline.”

For me, this is personal. For several years my mother delivered for Meals on Wheels. I know it was good for her. It made her feel she was being useful. From her anecdotes about the folks to whom she delivered those packages of food, I know the contact was important to them as well.

In her last years, she lived in an assisted living center. She would be the first to admit that it was a safer place to be. But until the day she passed away peacefully in her room, with me sitting beside her, she always had the hope that she would return “home” one day. I experienced firsthand how important it was to be independent and be at “home.”

Enough for emotion. Want to put a dollar yardstick to this?

“The average cost of a one-month nursing home stay is equivalent to providing home-delivered meals five days a week for approximately seven years.”

When seniors exhaust their personal assets, guess who picks up the tab for their care? Because Medicaid picks up the tab, the taxpayer does.

In terms of cost avoidance, the longer seniors can stay in their own homes, the principle benefit is lowered Medicaid costs for nursing home care.

According to a more recent study funded by the AARP, and as reported in the Post, a comparison was made between three groups of seniors – one group receiving daily meal deliveries, a second group receiving weekly bulk frozen food deliveries, and a third group receiving no assistance at all.

“What we found is that there were statistically significant differences in health benefits among the three groups with the highest gains recognized among participants living alone who had face-to-face contact via daily deliveries.”

And, by the way, “those receiving daily meals also experienced fewer falls and hospitalization, the study found.”

Ca-ching!

“Meals on Wheels sounds great …,” Mulvaney said, “but to take that federal money and give it to the states and say, ‘Look, we want to give you money for programs that don’t work’ – I can’t defend that anymore.”

The dismissive treatment of Meals on Wheels in #45’s budget proposal is symptomatic of the treatment accorded to many of the programs directly affecting ordinary Americans. Needless to say, it is, of course, a different story for those on top.

As for Mr. Mulvaney’s assessment of this particular program, there are only two words that seem appropriate in a family newspaper.

Bull hockey.