National Journal reports that the Obama administration, in its continuing effort to radically increase the public’s dependence on government, plans to
slash heating assistance for the poor
by more than half:
The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, or LIHEAP, would see funding drop by about $3 billion from an authorized 2009 total of $5.1 billion. The proposed cut will not touch the program’s emergency reserve fund, about $590 million, which can be used during particularly harsh cold snaps or extended heat spells.
Marc Ambinder describes the cut as a major step in a White House effort at “convincing Americans that it is serious about budget discipline.”
Discipline! Those careless poor people, frittering away taxpayer dollars on heat! Don’t they know these are tough economic times?
Ambinder relays administration spin that there is room to cut the heating program because it was expanded as part of the stimulus. Before Recovery Act spending, the program really only cost $2.8 billion—which is practically the same as the new $2.1 billion target, give or take 25 percent. So compared to 2008, maybe only 1 in 4 poor people will have the heat turned off.
“A lot of people in the Northeast are going to be unhappy,” an administration official briefed on the budget said.
What are they going to do about it, vote for Jeb Bush? Anyway, for freezing Northeasterners, there’s always an alternative: the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, via Citgo,
to
to Americans who have been let down by democracy and capitalism.
In 2010, an estimated 500,000 people in the U.S. benefited from the program, including 157,000 low-income households, almost 850 large-scale apartment buildings, 245 homeless shelters, and over 250 tribal communities. In total, 26 million gallons of heating oil were distributed to people in 25 states, as well as Washington, D.C.
Citgo has delivered 170 million gallons (772 million liters) of heating fuel since the start of the program, according to AFP.
This program to supply fuel oil is of course an ongoing publicity stunt by Hugo Chavez to make the United States look weak. As opposed to the Obama administration’s publicity stunt of cutting our country’s own fuel program, to make the United States look fiscally tough.
