Citing a need for stricter belt-tightening, President Obama has said he wants to slash almost $2.5 billion [1] from a program that helps low-income families pay their energy bills. The White House says lower oil prices mean funding can be reduced without leaving Americans too far in the cold. But whether that's actually the case is an open question.
The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, or LIHEAP, began in the 1980s as a federal program that helps eligible households pay for gasoline, oil and electricity to heat and cool their homes.
The administration has defended its proposal -- which would bring the program's current $5.1 billion budget down to pre-2008 levels -- by claiming that fuel prices simply aren't as high as they were three years ago.
But fuel prices can be volatile, and they have actually been trending upward. Last week, the Associated Press reported [2] that gasoline prices in the U.S. "have jumped to the highest levels ever for the middle of February," while oil prices "hit $100 per barrel in January for the first time since 2008." And critics of Obama's plan say his fuel price argument ignores another factor that has record-setting numbers of Americans asking for LIHEAP help: high unemployment [3].
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2 comments:
For once, Obama's right.
This is just another income redistribution, like the Universal Service Fee on our phones.
It is not the responsibility of the taxpayers to pay your heating and cooling bills.
Use your cigarette, cable TV and cellphone money for that.
You could write a sob story like this for every area that needs to be cut. Cuts have to happen. When cuts happen, less is available. That's the way it works.
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