The strain on meal programs in the Valley (as reported in the Aug. 20 Mat-Su section) is not the only problem for retirees. Rarely reported is the fact that seniors across the country bear the heaviest effects of the current economic crisis.
Since many are on fixed incomes and past their wage-earning years, increased costs and inflation have a greater effect on seniors than on those who are still working. Seniors' homes make up a large portion of the 112 percent increase in foreclosures since the first quarter of 2007 as reported in the U.S. Foreclosure Market Report.
Meanwhile, senior bankruptcies are up more than 100 percent since 1991, according to a recently released AARP telephone poll.
Retirees know from experience that any increase in Social Security to make up for inflation is soon eaten up by an increase in Medicare premiums, leaving their meager bottom line even worse than before.
Having to choose between putting food on the table or buying needed medication is a genuine reality of life for far too many.
Fueling all this is a national deficit of more than $400 billion, and this number does not include the war costs in Iraq and Afghanistan. When George Bush took office there actually was a surplus. The accumulated debt resulting from the Bush administration's deficits and interest is now a whopping nine trillion dollars.
In spite of the financial hardships reported by over sixty-five percent of seniors, political polls report that seniors overwhelmingly support Sen. John McCain for president. One might ask seniors, "What can you be thinking?"
McCain offers little to seniors to relieve their financial hardships. Instead, he proposes more corporate tax cuts that will give the oil industry another $4 billion windfall courtesy of you and me.
Right now more than sixty-one percent of corporations pay no taxes at all. Think about that the next time you write a check to the IRS on your meager retirement income.
McCain also repeatedly proposes to privatize Social Security, and he is one of the legislators who made certain that the Medicare drug bill would maximize profits for drug companies instead of minimizing costs to seniors and taxpayers.
Some seniors seem to automatically check the box marked R on the ballot simply out of habit. As the saying goes, supposedly, you can't teach an old dog new tricks.
Well, there is another saying that says if you keep doing what you've been doing, you'll keep getting what you've been getting. Apparently McCain likes that idea.
Unless we're prepared to carry denial to the nth degree in the face of all evidence to the contrary, the obvious truth is that the Bush administration's corporate-friendly economic policies have only trickled down economic disaster to retirees at the bottom of the income chain.
McCain boasts that he was with President Bush every step of the way. Not only that, in repeated town hall meetings he vows to continue those policies even as his ads manipulate the language to make it appear that he wants to help seniors.
In spite of the wisdom seniors are supposed to have garnered with age and experience, some will be unable to break the old R voting habit and will seize on any excuse offered in justification.
But if you're willing to look yourself in the mirror and acknowledge the truth, you'll agree that we can't afford four more years of government of the rich, for the rich and by the rich.
By any measure it is wrong for the many homebound elderly across the country and here in the Valley to end their days hungry because Meals-on-Wheels can't afford to deliver while Exxon reaps in more billions every quarter than it ever has in history.
Only real change in Washington can fix this. I hope you'll remember your fellow seniors when you get into the voting booth and have the courage to move that pencil over to the box marked Barack Obama.
Marian Elliott is a retired senior living in the Valley on a fixed income.
By MARIAN ELLIOTT