Washington cuts funding for emergency utilities assistance

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/nov2010/lihe-n10.shtml

Even as the number of households applying for emergency assistance with their utility bills is expected to reach record levels, the federal government has dramatically reduced funding for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP). If the US Senate fails to appropriate additional money for LIHEAP when it reconvenes later this month, the program will see its financing reduced to $3.3 billion in fiscal year 2011 (FY 2011), a $1.8 billion decline over the previous year.

While the US House of Representatives requested $5.1 billion for LIHEAP in its proposed FY 2011 budget, which began in October 2010, the Senate has thus far only approved $3.3 billion. Unless the Senate takes action to match the amount approved by the House of Representatives before the start of the next congressional session in January, LIHEAP’s funding will remain at the $3.3 billion level.

The consequences of this will be devastating. Some experts are projecting that 10 million households will seek help during the 2010-2011 winter heating season this year, up from 8.8 million last year and 7.7 million the year before. In a September 21 letter to Congress, the National Energy Assistance Directors’ Association (NEADA) noted, for example, that “Colorado is projecting the number of applicants to increase by at least 15 percent,” while Maryland, which has an early enrollment, had already seen a 5 percent jump in the number of households seeking help.

The 35 percent reduction in LIHEAP financing will force the state agencies that administer the funds to slash the size of the subsidies they offer, turn qualified applicants away, or both. “It will put a lot of families in dire straits,” George Coling, director of the National Fuel Funds Network, told the World Socialist Web Site.


MORE at the link ---

[Hannah Bell]

1. kr.

[pinboy3niner]

2. K&R

[hobbit709]

3. The more serfs that die, the less they will have to feed.

[Donnachaidh]

4. I have to add a personal note to this obscenity

When my DH was *underemployed* and we were struggling to keep a roof over our heads LIHEAP was one of the FEW programs that didn't give us the boot because we actually had some money coming in from part time jobs, etc.

It has been a program that REALLY helped the working class and the poor. And now they cut it? When even more people are reaching that horrible point of running out of savings, and now running out of unemployment?

My grandparents lived through the Depression. They talked to us about how hard it was, living with a new baby, literally looking for pennies to keep food on the table. The one thought they were so proud of was the FACT that our country, as they grew older, had set things up to HELP people in dire needs.

They would be dumbstruck and ashamed of what we have become, within a generation of their deaths.

WHEN do we say ENOUGH? WHEN?