Budget woes present challening decisions

Ms. Swope and the SMSSI are an asset of considerable importance to the elderly in the mountian communities. With limited funds they do incredible things. no money has ever beeen better spent. Every way possible must be explored to save this fine organization from the budget cuts being considered by our legislators. I have done it and encourage every reader to contact the governor's office and their legislators and urge them to make all possible efforts to block theh proposed cuts.

This is another example of what the Obama administration thinks of seniors. The recent announcement that seniors on Social security would not get a Cost Of Living increase was followed by a one time check for $250.00 to try to appease the seniors. This would amount to $20.00 a month over the next year, but lacking common sense the government will pay it all at once. Obama stated that he will have to borrow the money for this, while if they paid it one month at a time it may not need to be borrowed. At the same time Obama passed the 2% raise for representatives while cutting the COLA for seniors. We need to vote these bums out of office and give the warning to future folks that say they represent us. We give food to food banks but perhaps we need to concentrate on senior programs. There was a time when seniors were respected but now I guess now we are expendable.

I am a working senior. I did not receive a COLA last year and don't expect to get one this year. The one time check idea is pretty silly.

Who remembers the little checks that the State of NM distributed a couple of months before the free-fall? Gimmickry.

How about a 7.6% cut to the staffs wages if they are so concerned about the seniors!

Ralph wrote:

This is another example of what the Obama administration thinks of seniors. The recent announcement that seniors on Social security would not get a Cost Of Living increase was followed by a one time check for $250.00 to try to appease the seniors. This would amount to $20.00 a month over the next year, but lacking common sense the government will pay it all at once. Obama stated that he will have to borrow the money for this, while if they paid it one month at a time it may not need to be borrowed. At the same time Obama passed the 2% raise for representatives while cutting the COLA for seniors. We need to vote these bums out of office and give the warning to future folks that say they represent us. We give food to food banks but perhaps we need to concentrate on senior programs. There was a time when seniors were respected but now I guess now we are expendable.

You can't blame everything that is wrong in this country on one man. The COLA feature of Social Security is a legal fixture that has been there far longer that President Obama has been in politics, so you can take that rant and put it where the sun may never find it. The idea of a one-time substitute payment of $250 is a gesture of good will, but I don't see it as a real deal maker for people on Social Security. Getting back to the article and off of political rants, the programatic cuts at the STATE level are the result of politicians looking only at dollar amounts, not the nature of the programs or the benefits derived by the many for so few dollars. No one can envy this director's job of having to tell a number of people that the meal truck won't reach their house after a given date, or that there will be a day when the center does not offer a meal. That is the human cost that politicians with blind devotion to some ideology can't see, regardless of the party. Nobody likes a tax increase and we can all tell our state politicians that their ideas are wrong, but the facts are what they are, too little money for the programs we all know are important. Getting cuts made in areas near and dear to politicians that have no real socially redeeming value is even harder. In California, the last budget cycle started with a deficit to be eliminated of over $24 Billion and you see pain in every corner after the cuts that were made. I wish the director all the best and I sincerely hope that human benefit programs like this get a break and get their money. No one needs to suffer like seniors deprived of a meal will suffer.

Skuttlebutt wrote:

How about a 7.6% cut to the staffs wages if they are so concerned about the seniors!

That is an idea whose time may well have come in more states that one.

Skuttlebutt wrote:

How about a 7.6% cut to the staffs wages if they are so concerned about the seniors!

How 'bout congress and the house taking a 7.6% decrease in their salary and that extra money would go to the programs that they have decided to cut totally or even partially. Just think, if all these people would actually care about people in their states it might work better.
Have you noticed it is "us" tax payers that are being shafted. Not just those of us working but those who have retired. A lot of their benefits are being done away with or cut so that a persson can't survive

Let us not forget the wild speculation and greed of those money lenders who got us into this situation in the first place. It is not helpful to shift blame onto those who are trying to repair the damage of thirty years of financial rape and plunder.

leprachan wrote:

<quoted text>
How 'bout congress and the house taking a 7.6% decrease in their salary and that extra money would go to the programs that they have decided to cut totally or even partially. Just think, if all these people would actually care about people in their states it might work better.
Have you noticed it is "us" tax payers that are being shafted. Not just those of us working but those who have retired. A lot of their benefits are being done away with or cut so that a persson can't survive

It is called distribution of wealth