Joe Kennedy and Hugo Chavez say hello!
Posted on 12/24/2011 12:06:28 PM PST by DeaconBenjamin
Just in time for the cold weather and holiday season, states have learned that Congress cut $1.2 billion from a program to provide heating and cooling assistance to low-income families.
The large spending bill that Congress approved this month for 2012 contained about $3.5 billion for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP).
Advocates of LIHEAP had hoped Congress would fund the program at its 2010 level of $5.1 billion; it was funded at $4.7 billion for 2011, an amount that several governors urged Congress to maintain for this year. President Obama’s budget proposal would have cut LIHEAP funding by nearly 50 percent to $2.6 billion, so the congressional figure came down somewhere in the middle.
“It could have been worse,” says Mark Wolfe, executive director of the National Energy Assistance Directors’ Association, an organization that represents state LIHEAP directors. “We are relieved that the Congress did not accept the far deeper cuts.”
Still, some say the timing of the cuts couldn't be worse.“At a time when employment and income remain stagnant, high home energy prices create unmanageable burdens for so many families, and applications for energy assistance are at record high levels, a $1.2 billion cut to LIHEAP is unconscionable,” says John Howat, of the National Consumer Law Center in Boston.
The program is especially important to the Northeast, as 75 percent of the heating oil used in the United States is used in that area, says Wolfe. New York got the most money from the block grant program in 2011, $496 million, followed by Pennsylvania with $280 million and Illinois with $239 million, according to this state-by-state list.
The program also helps low income households pay for air conditioning. Warm weather states such as Florida, for example, got $108 million and Texas $179 million from the program in 2011.
All told, some 9 million households rely on LIHEAP, with an increasing number of military families getting help. A recent survey by Wolfe’s organization found that veteran households account for nearly 35 percent of the total growth in the program between 2008 and 2011. Some 1.8 million veterans get assistance, up from nearly 696,000 in 2008. Wolfe says the increase shows “the program is reaching some of the nation’s poorest families, including those who have served their nation in times of peace as well as war.”
They should be able to get the difference from Solyndra and Fannie and Freddie.
Oh, wait....
Heating oil has become prohibitively expensive. Years ago, the climate goons convinced a bunch of elderly and poor to turn in their old woodstoves for new efficient kerosene heaters. Now they can’t afford the heating oil and suppliers won’t deliver less than a 100 gallons.
I heat almost exclusively with a woodstove and a small space heater. Can’t afford the $1000 a year for diesel for my furnace. I can get oak for $200 a cord and it puts locals to work.
Previous generations made out fine without the handouts
Gimme gimme gimme
There running a radio and tv commercial featuring Joe Kennedy hocking Chavez oil “we asked the oil companies to help and they said no” Heart wrenching selfengrandizing Joe promoting his investments. Who’s he kidding? Oh thats right he’s for the little guy and the seniors who are Americans and who can’t afford oil to keep warm in the winter. Stuff it Joe
Personally, I am glad to see this. People want to vote for politicians who push these insane policies, they should feel the same pain of these policies we all do.
A recent survey by Wolfe’s organization
Yep, must be an unpaid position huh Wolfe? No conflict of interest here, right?
Joe Kennedy and Hugo Chavez say hello!
But first you have to live where the enviro whacks have not attacked yet and instituted no burn days. Where we live it seems like every day is a no burn day. I out smarted them though, put a pellet stove in years ago and burn every day whether they like it or not.
I use a wood stove and venting system to heat the house. The Forest Service sells five cords of wood permits for $20, and living between two national forest, I usually get permits for each.
Take it out of the SS fund......Nevermind
Wonder how many of the so-called poor buy lottery tickets, booze and drugs with the money they are supposed to spend on their utilities.
But we still have NPR! Just tell the old folks to cuddle up to the nice, warm radio.
Build the Keystone XL pipeline and we won’t need heating assistance programs for the poor.
Makes too much sense...which is why it won’t be done.
“Just in time for the cold weather and holiday season”???
Hey man, yesterday I went sailing, 12 mph. Today 82 and worked in the yard.
Tomorrow 82 and again 11 mph and sailing again.
Monday, offshore fishing as it will be about 6 MPH out of the S.E.
Life is good.
My guess is this is actually a false cut.. they will add additional funds in another bill because of need..
There's no shut off for heating oil or coal, maybe city gas. Both oil and coal have gotten crazy expensive. Oil costs more than gasoline for the first time. It's less refined so it has always been cheaper.
Heating oil has become my biggest annual expense.
With all the foreclosures, why would they even need to buy heating oil. The price should be rock bottom because of a lack of demand. If they can’t afford the rock bottom price, I’m sure they could just put solar panels on their roofs (government has lots of them available from a recent Dept. of Energy client bankruptcy). They could use some of those coveted illegal immigrants to dust the snow off regularly. Those desiring a more reliable source of energy could install wind turbines in their back yards. It is advised that those who install wind turbines invite groups of leftists, such as MoveOn, LeanForward, DNC, CNN, NBC, MSNBC, etc. to provide a constant flow of hot air to power the turbines.
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