From CBS News: “Trump voter who uses Meals on Wheels surprised by proposed cuts.”

“Trump Administration Picks Strange Fight With Meals On Wheels,” read a Huffington Post report.

The budget proposes, “the complete elimination of the $3 billion Community Development Block Grant program, which funds popular programs like Meals on Wheels, housing assistance and other community assistance efforts,” the New York Times reported in the story that may have started the whole furor.

The problem with these and similar news reports, many of which were published not long after Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., claimed Meals on Wheels would be “eliminated” under Trump’s proposal, is that they are either misleading or flat-out inaccurate.

First, Meals on Wheels does not directly receive federal funding.

Secondly, Trumps’ budget doesn’t even mention the charitable program. Rather, it calls for the elimination of the Community Development Block Grant program. The CDBG, which started under President Gerald Ford, is meant to fight poverty. Unfortunately, much of the cash goes to programs that have very little to do with helping the poor.

“Much like the corrupt city redevelopment agencies, what actually ends up happening is that this money gets funneled by politicians to friends with connections for various projects that aren’t really about helping the poor at all,” Reason’s Scott Shackford explained.

Here’s small sample of the sort of projects that have been OK’d for CDGB cash, via Reason:

• $588,000 for a marina in Alexandria, Louisiana
• $245,000 for the expansion of an art museum in Allentown, Pennsylvania
• $147,000 for a canopy walk at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens in Georgia
• $196,000 for expanding the Calvin Coolidge State historic site in Vermont
• $294,000 for a community recreational facility in New Haven, Connecticut
• $196,000 for the construction of an auditorium in Casper, Wyoming
• $441,000 to replace a county exposition center in Umatilla, Oregon
• $98,000 for the Pearl Fincher Museum of Fine Arts in Spring, Texas
• $245,000 for renovations to awnings at a historical market in Roanoke, Virginia
• $294,000 for the development of an educational program at the Houston Zoo in Texas

The CDBG gives states and localities the power to decide how some of the money is spent. In certain cases, the cash has been used to boost funding for Meals on Wheels, which is lucky for CDBG supporters. It’s “lucky” because some of the cash actually benefits the poor, meaning supporters can then accuse reformers of being anti-charity if they attempt to clean up the program’s many failings.

Lastly, and this is the most interesting point of all, Meals on Wheels’ primary source of support comes from the Older Americans Act, which is currently facing no major cutbacks.

The OAA, which dates back to the 1960s, accounts for 35 percent of Meals on Wheels’ overall local budgets. The 60s-era initiative does far more than the CDBG to benefit Meals on Wheels, and the most anyone can say now is that OAA might be dialed back at some point in the future.

“We don’t know the exact impact yet,” Meals on Wheel’s CEO and president Ellie Hollander said in reference to the CDBG cuts.

He added, “Details on our network’s primary source of funding, the Older Americans Act, which has supported senior nutrition programs for 45 years, have not yet been released.”

Yet, there has been no shortage of headlines and news reports claiming Trump’s budget would do away with Meals on Wheels.

Many of the reports, including the Hill’s, make no mention of OAA’s support for Meals on Wheels.

Time updated its story eventually with the following, hardly informative note: “Clarification: An earlier headline for this story said President Trump’s budget proposal would kill the Meals on Wheels program. Because Meals on Wheels gets funding from other sources, it might not actually be eliminated, but it could be severely curtailed.”