Rand Paul: America's hungry seniors should turn to charity
Daily Kos
Rand Paul: America's hungry seniors should turn to charity
It's a seriously fucked up new world in Washington, DC.
A Senate subcommittee on Primary Health and Aging, chaired by Sen. Bernie Sanders, held a hearing Tuesday on the “human toll and budget consequences” of senior hunger. Panelists shared tales of woe from older Americans unable to get enough food, and urged increased funding for nutrition programs under the Older Americans Act of 1965.
This might have been non-controversial a few years ago, but not with the Tea Party in town. The hearing produced a fierce debate between Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, and Sen. Rand Paul, the prototypical Tea Partier, about whether the government should even perform simple tasks like feeding hungry senior citizens....
Mary Jane Koren, a geriatrician and vice-president of the Commonwealth Fund, noted that seniors often suffer health problems and are put in nursing homes after falling down. Poor nutrition leads to decreased muscle strength, meaning a higher chance of falling—and weaker seniors are more likely to be gravely injured in such a fall. Koren noted that by 2020, the annual cost of medical care for seniors who fall is expected to reach $54.9 billion—many magnitudes more than the approximately $2 billion per year the federal government spends on nutrition assistance for senior citizens.
Sen. Paul, however, explicitly rejected this logic. “It’s curious that only in Washington can you spend $2 billion and claim that you’re saving money,” he said. “The idea or notion that spending money in Washington somehow is saving money really flies past most of the taxpayers.” Instead, Paul touted the “nobility of private charity” as opposed to government-funded “transfer programs.” He suggested privatizing Meals on Wheels and other government assistance for hungry seniors.
Sanders had none of this. “Senator Paul has suggested that only in Washington can people believe that spending money actually saves money. And I think that’s the kind of philosophy that results in us spending about twice as much per person on health care as any other country on earth,” Sanders said. ...
In providing this explanation of how social investment works, and the consequences of not making it, Sen. Sanders is making the mistake of thinking that Sen. Paul a) has the capacity to understand what his talking about, and b) gives a shit that there are people dying because they don't have health care, or have to chose between it and starving. ...
More
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/06/22/987624/-Rand-Paul-America-s-hungry-seniors-should-turn-to-charity?detail=email
•••
Apparently Paul's too young to remember the flood of stories in the 70s about senior citizens who ate canned cat food because it was all they could afford. Of course, he has nothing to worry about -- his Senate pension & health insurance will do him just fine.
= new reply since forum marked as read
...work so I don't have to explain to anyone what I am laughing about. Excellent expansion on cyberswede's original statement.
"shitweasel" is the work for which you are searching? 
one of those 'compassionate christians'. 
Let's set aside all the issues of whether or not it would actually work and assume it does.
Congratulations, you've just created a society full of moochers! Everyone is going to be able to reap the
benefits of having non-starving elderly people (they are, you know, still likely paying for goods and services and helping to keep others employeed), but only a subset of people actually contributed to achieving this outcome.
Hmm, if only there was some way of having everyone contribute some, in proportion to how much they seem to be benefiting, to all these public investments! 
