. >> thank you, cementer franken for all the work you are doing for seniors and for your contribution today. let me just conclude, picking up on a point that senator franken made. a number of wonderful people have pointed out that hard to judge a society is how you respond to the needs of the weakest and the most vulnerable and the population that we are talking about today when people get 70, 80, 90, they are vulnerable. and it seems to me that at a time when the wealthiest people in this country are doing very, very well at a time when our deficit was caused by unpaid laws and tax breaks for folks who didn't need the money, the wall street bailout and so forth, i think we have got to take a very hard look at the morality and the economics of balancing the budget on elderly people and some of the most vulnerable people in our society and that's the point many of you have made this morning and i thank you very much for your testimony. what we are trying to do is raise consciousness on the issue that in this recession many seniors are hurting and we cannot simply balance the bush on th

cementer franken. >> i'm glad, ms.tmann, you brought up the fact that very often as these churches who are doing the work on meals for wheels or something like that people don't realize that that is part of the older americans act. that is the funding that is coming through so it enables the churches to do that job and to do a wonderful job as they do and as many volunteers so it is really leveraging the older americans act and many ways it is a good use of funds because it enables seniors to stay in their homes and not have to go to a nursing home, which is much more expensive to everybody concerned, and not what they want to do, what seniors want to do. so i think you for bringing that up and i know that ms. najaf in the national council on aging has just launched an older americans act survive defeat to support drive for members of congress to commit to strengthening the older americans act during this year's reauthorization. how many members of congress have joined this dr.? >> so far, senator, chairman sanders, th

. >> thank you, cementer franken for all the work you are doing for seniors and for your contribution today. let me just conclude, picking up on a point that senator franken made. a number of wonderful people have pointed out that hard to judge a society is how you respond to the needs of the weakest and the most vulnerable and the population that we are talking about today when people get 70, 80, 90, they are vulnerable. and it seems to me that at a time when the wealthiest people in this country are doing very, very well at a time when our deficit was caused by unpaid laws and tax breaks for folks who didn't need the money, the wall street bailout and so forth, i think we have got to take a very hard look at the morality and the economics of balancing the budget on elderly people and some of the most vulnerable people in our society and that's the point many of you have made this morning and i thank you very much for your testimony. what we are trying to do is raise consciousness on the issue that in this recession many seniors are hurting and we cannot simply balance the bush on th