MEDICAID: Cuts could put seniors on the streets

If Medicaid is cut, the 64% of Idaho seniors in nursing homes will be put out either into their relatives’ care or on the street according to the estimate I found today. With the few paying seniors left, many nursing homes will just close.  

Cutting the Dept of Education may result in more people being homeless. I have a relative who is being trained to hold down a job due to program from the Dept. of Education which he would not be able to do without the special training the program provides.  

Slashing budgets and employees with a chainsaw is not the way to go about cutting spending. Bill Clinton cut programs, but did it judiciously by carefully studying each program and determining what could be cut, still leaving the program intact.  

Consideration of the repercussions of the slashing of federal programs and employees is needed lest we are left with multiple catastrophes and all because the millionaires and billionaires want a tax cut. We would be better off if we returned to the tax rates of the 1950s when millionaires paid between 42 and 45% of their income in taxes. Today it is 26-28%. Warren Buffet has called for tax rates for the rich to be increased for years. That is a good way to start balancing the budget. Just how much money do these wealthy people need?  

DONNA HARVEY

Hayden