States across the U.S. are suffering from a variety of recession-related budget woes, and, as reported by The New York Times in a front-page story last weekend (“States Slashing Social Programs for Vulnerable,” April 11), many are responding by “slicing into their social safety nets — often crippling preventive efforts that officials say would save money over time.”

At least 34 states have been forced to enact cuts that hurt their vulnerable residents, according to the Washington-based Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (“An Update on State Budget Cuts,” March 18, 2009, pdf). But the Times reports that “Perhaps nowhere have the cuts been more disruptive than in Arizona, where more than 1,000 frail elderly people are struggling without home-care aides to help with bathing, housekeeping and trips to the doctor.”

When newly seated Republican Gov. Jan Brewer took office in January, she was faced with the task of cutting $1.6 billion from a $10 billion annual budget, and getting it done before the end of the current fiscal year on June 30. One of the casualties was a home-care program for elders.

Arizona is expecting to encounter a $3 billion budget deficit in the next fiscal year. According to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, although the federal economic recovery package includes about $140 billion for fiscal relief for state governments, this will only cover about 40 percent of the total shortfall that U.S. states expect to encounter over the next two-and-a-half years.

Mary Lynn Kasunic, president of the Area Agency on Aging in Phoenix, pointed to serious consequences from these developments. “If you don’t give people a bath a couple times a week, change the linens and make sure they get their medicines, their health will decline much faster,” she said. “They end up in the emergency room in a crisis, and then in a nursing home” (The New York Times).