Austerity fever hasn’t abated in Washington, and once again the poorest people in America are taking the bite — frostbite. Arthur Delaney at HuffPo:
Just in time for the start of winter, Congress and the White House reduced LIHEAP funding by 25 percent. The federal government doled out $4.7 billion for heating assistance in fiscal 2011; the 2012 allotment is $3.5 billion. The cut happened in December as lawmakers scrambled to fund the government before they left town. The result will be less heat for fewer people.
Nearly 9 million households received assistance in 2011, according to the National Energy Assistance Directors’ Association, a Washington group that advocates for household energy subsidy programs. The average benefit was $417 per year. Ninety percent of households that received assistance last year had at least one “vulnerable” member, which NEADA describes as a person who is older than 60, younger than 18 or disabled. Households are eligible for the program if their income is at or below 150 percent of the poverty level or 60 percent of their state’s median income.
NEADA director Mark Wolfe said the smaller appropriation would mean assistance for roughly 1 million fewer households.
If you’re looking for an obotamapologist to defend this, look elsewhere. I don’t know how to defend midwinter cuts to a program that might let a million Americans freeze to death, so I don’t even try. If there’s one area where I can give enthusiastic support to a confrontation with the White House, it’s LIHEAP and associated heating assistance programs. Any saved revenue from these cuts does not make up for the misery they create.
