March 20, 2017
Regarding Petula Dvorak’s March 17 Metro column, “In his budget, Trump forgets the ‘forgotten’ Americans”:
President Trump’s skinny budget may starve the Meals on Wheels program for 2.4 million low-income seniors. When I was staff director of the Senate Select Committee on Aging in the late 1980s, there was a similar effort to slash funding. A Republican senator who favored budget cuts accepted my suggestion to ride along with a Meals on Wheels van and see for himself the positive impact on seniors. He was impressed by not only the sustenance of the food, but also the seniors’ human connection to the volunteers, and became an enthusiastic advocate for the program.
Perhaps Mr. Trump should ride with a Meals on Wheels van and witness the profound benefits to our nation’s most vulnerable seniors.
Max Richtman, Washington
The writer is president and chief executive
of the National Committee to Preserve
Social Security and Medicare.