Here’s a particularly nasty way of snuffing Grandma that I haven’t heard Caribou Barbie or (gr)Assley talking about

As we noted awhile back, the Republican Depression of 2008 has created a country where a million children a year don’t get enough to eat.

As staggering (and infuriating) as that figure is, though, we shouldn’t assume that the Rushpubliscums let other age groups off the hook. For as we all know, the deregulation the Rushpubliscums pushed led to a situation where many 401(k) plans turned out to be investors in things like derivatives. Those plans are now worthless. And in addition to that, the giant giveaway to the pharmas known as the “Medicare drug plan” has huge gaps in when it will pick up coverage of prescription costs (I saw this firsthand, as we found ourselves having to pony up here and there to make sure my mother had the drugs she needed while battling cancer.)

Yes, those “MARKETS!!!” have not only worked their magic on babies, children, working people, and students, they’ve also brought their “benefits” to bear on our senior citizens, as you can see here.

Older Americans who were raised on stories of the Great Depression and acquired lifelong habits of thrift now find themselves crowding soup kitchens and food pantries in greater numbers for the first time after seeing retirement funds, second jobs and nest eggs wiped out by recession. “What we see in line is lots of gray hair, lots of walkers,” said Marti Forman, CEO of The Cooperative Feeding Program in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

The help is crucial for many fixed-income seniors, who can’t always keep up with rising food prices.

“It’s a lifeline. It just means that you can function,” said Ronald Shewchuk of Ithaca, N.Y. “Otherwise we would have to sell our house. I don’t know what we would do. Go to an old age home.”

The number of seniors living alone who seek help from food pantries in the U.S. increased 81 percent to 408,000 in 2008, compared to 225,000 in 2006, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Overall, 4.7 million households used American food pantries in 2008, compared to about 3.7 million in 2006.

“Seniors thought they were OK, but they’re not OK,” said Virginia Skinner, director of Development at The Association of Arizona Food Banks in Phoenix, citing the downturn in the area’s housing market.

Catholic Charities USA, which has 170 agencies across the country helping the needy, issued a 2009 third-quarter report that found a 54 percent increase in requests for food and services from seniors nationwide compared to the same period last year.

Despite the increased need, it can be difficult for some older people to come forward and seek help.

“They’re of a generation that feels they took care of themselves, and now in these desperate straits they don’t want to acknowledge it,” said Catholic Charities spokesman Roger Conner. “With seniors and retirees – people that were planning for that period of their life – they are often very proud and very private, and they want no one to know of the difficulties they might be experiencing.”

Shewchuk, a 72-year-old retired technician, said he’s been struggling to pay his bills and keep up with rising food costs. He said he and his wife Helen, 75, never needed charity before and used to volunteer at their local soup kitchen. This year, they started using it five days a week and getting assistance from food banks and the state. They have no children.

“We just have Social Security and a small pension, and we just can’t make it with the mortgage payments and the gas and electric and so forth,” Shewchuk said. “It’s just draining our resources.”

At St. Mary’s Food Bank in Phoenix, 64-year-old Sherry Whittemore was collecting her monthly box of canned juice, pasta, beans and vegetables. She began coming to the food bank in January after losing her customer relations job at a Fry’s Electronics store.

“I thought I would be able to get a job soon, but that’s just unrealistic,” Whittemore said.

Even with a temporary job helping people with vocational training and unemployment payments, she has had to tap into about $14,000 in savings.

Hubert Scheid, 76, drives a Lexus and owns a two-bedroom condo in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., but says he has depleted his savings and works part time as a security guard to pay for rent, food and medication.

Even then, it’s still not enough. But he makes too much money to qualify for most assistance. For the Thanksgiving holidays, he expected to get a food box and turkey from The Pantry of Broward.

“I owned a Porsche. I had all the trimmings, the way you want to live when you’re young and successful,” Scheid said. “I went from rags to riches and from riches back to rags. You can’t get help because you have it too good, but you don’t have it good enough.”

Seniors, as we all know, voted in high percentages for the moronic monkey, and without a doubt a lot of that was due to fear and loathing. Now, they have something entirely different to fear.

Those who might be thinking of skipping the 2010 election might want to keep in mind what will happen if the Rushpubliscums ever again attain a majority. They will finish the job they’ve started, and turn us all into hungry beggars. In the America they envision, it doesn’t matter how hard you work, or how much service you’ve given your country-what matters is whether or not you’re rich. If you are, they’ll make sure you get richer, and they’ll do that at the expense of everyone else. The idiot asshat “teabaggers” have been getting their money sent to the top 2% for decades now, and still, they prattle on mindlessly about “socialism.”

We need to not be as stupid as they are. Lest we all see each other in the bread line.

Tags: economy, failure, rushpubliscums, senior citizens

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 28th, 2009 at 7:02 pm and is filed under Jolly Roger, The Republican Depression of 2008-?. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.