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Trump Budget Director Mick Mulvaney told reporters today that eliminating food for senior citizens via the Meals On Wheels program was the compassionate thing to do because if a program can’t demonstrate results, it should get cut.

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When Mulvaney was asked about the elimination of funding for Meals On Wheels, he answered, “I think you know that Meals On Wheels is not a federal program. It’s part of that Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) that we give to the states, and then many states make the decision to use that money on Meals On Wheels. What I can tell you about CDBGs is that’s what we fund. Right? So we spend $150 billion on those programs since the 1970s. The CDBGs have been identified as programs since I think the second Bush administration as ones that we just not showing any results. We can’t do that anymore. We can’t spend money on programs just because they sound good. Meals On Wheels sounds great. Again, that’s a state decision to fund that particular portion, but to take the federal money and to give that to the states, and say look we want to give you federal money for programs that don’t work. I can’t defend that anymore.”

Later Mulvaney was asked if this is a hard-hearted budget. He answered, “I don’t think so. In fact, I think it is one of the most compassionate things we can do to. You’re only focusing on half of the equation. Right? You’re focusing on recipients of the money. We’re trying to focus on both the recipients and the folks who give us the money in the first place, and I think it’s fairly compassionate to go to them and say look, we’re not going to ask you for your hard earned money anymore.”

In other words, screw the starving elderly and the kids who are going to go without afterschool programs, people like Donald Trump aren’t giving you their “hard earned” money anymore.

Meals on Wheels helps 2.4 million seniors have access to food while being able to stay in their own homes. The results for the program can be seen in both nutritional terms and increased independence for millions of Americans. Meals on Wheels saves taxpayers $34 billion a year in healthcare costs.

This is a vital program for America’s communities, and anyone who claims otherwise is not telling the truth. The selfish argument about taxpayers isn’t going to fly in this case.

The Trump administration has gone from being out of touch with America to trying to starve Americans.