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How can we, as a people, a compassionate people, continue to allow tax cuts to our wealthiest citizens and cut off the heat to the poorest ones?
Reports that President Barack Obama's upcoming budget will propose steep cuts in the government's energy assistance fund for low-income Americans ricocheted quickly on Capitol Hill Wednesday, spurring some intraparty squabbling.
Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) wrote a letter to Obama asking him not to drop funding for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) by about $3 billion.
"I understand that difficult cuts have to be made," the Massachusetts Democrat wrote. "But in the middle of a brutal, even historic, New England winter, home heating assistance is more critical than ever to the health and welfare of millions of Americans, especially senior citizens. I request that the administration preserve LIHEAP funding at least to the Fiscal Year 2010 funding at $5.1 billion when it submits its FY12 budget proposal to Congress."
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that looks like 230,000,000 to me ... not 3 billion.
Where did you get that 230,000,000 figure from, IP? I'm confused.
Quote:
It's going back to the amount it was before Obama took office.
The cut word is highly misleading
Yes, it is going back to pre-Obama days but how does that make the "cut" word misleading? If you take away what's already been raised, it's a "cut," isn't it? Was this supposed to be a temporary raise in aid (like the tax cuts to the rich were supposed to be temporary) or is it a reduction in aid, regardless of how long it's been in effect?
The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, or LIHEAP, would see funding drop by about $2.5 billion from an authorized 2009 total of $5.1 billion.
The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, or LIHEAP, would see funding drop by about $2.5 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, three officials told National Journal.
In 2010, Obama signed into law an omnibus budget resolution that released a total of about $5 billion in LIHEAP grants for 2011. Pointing to the increasing number of Americans who made use of the grants last year, advocates say that LIHEAP is already underfunded. The American Gas Association predicts that 3 million Americans eligible for the program won't be able to receive it unless LIHEAP funding stays at its current level.
How can we, as a people, a compassionate people, continue to allow tax cuts to our wealthiest citizens and cut off the heat to the poorest ones?
...
I don't know the details of this program, but I don't think compassion is a good grounds for determining appropriate government spending levels -- wouldn't that same rationale warrant, say, $6.1B of spending rather than just $5.1B?
I do agree with you about tax cuts, though. While I'd like to see taxes reformed (not just cut), if we're making hard spending cuts like the one described here, taxpayers -- particularly the wealthy, and especially the extremely wealthy -- can sacrifice their tax cuts until we get spending under control. (I also hope we're making more meaningful and justifiable cuts elsewhere throughout the budget.)
What I wrote is entirely consistent with the cuts proposed by Hal Rogers (R-Ky.), Chairman of the House Appropriates Committee.
Right, yesterday a block of republicans broke ranks and voted with democrats and your response is to whine about the republicans that didn't. Today it's Obama who has proposed cuts and you repond with something a republican did. You turn every eventy into some kind of talking point, completely missing or ignoring the OP's point just to make your own. Do you think the affected people give a rats azz which side cuts the fuel off? is Obama proposing this in a compassionate way and Rogers is proposing it in a mean spirited way?
Last edited by PatsWSB47; 02-10-2011 at 10:23 AM..
Right, yesterday a block of republicans broke ranks and voted with democrats and your response is to whine about the republicans that didn't. Today it's Obama who has proposed cuts and you repond with something a republican did. You turn every eventy into some kind of talking point, completely missing or ignoring the OP's point just to make your own. Do you think the affected people give a rats azz which side cuts the fuel off? is Obama proposing this in a compassionate way and Rogers is proposing it in a mean spirited way?
My response wasn't to "whine" about Republicans that didn't vote against renewal. I was illustrating that the failed vote wasn't due to any purported "Tea Party insurrection," contra to the line being parroted in the thread and elsewhere in the media. Please try to keep up.
My response in this thread was merely a sarcastic point about how this isn't something you'd expect to see from Obama but, rather, the Republicans.
Back on topic, a little context:
Quote:
With that in mind, the proposed cuts offered the appearance of a president abandoning principle in hopes of winning fiscal conservative plaudits. A source familiar with the budget process, however, offered several clarifications to Wednesday's report. The cut, the source said, would be $2.5 billion in LIHEAP funding, not $3 billion. The proposed appropriation level will be $2.57 billion, which mirrors the Fiscal Year 2008 appropriation, not $2.8 billion.
And while it had been reported that the Recovery Act helped move LIHEAP funding from that FY08 level to more than $8 billion, the source said that was not the case. There was no LIHEAP funding in the stimulus, rather, there were funds for weatherization programs
Finally, the source said that "energy prices are now well below their levels in Spring 2008 when Congress decided to increase LIHEAP funding to $5.1 billion." The latter point, designed to assuage critics who chastised LIHEAP cuts as draconian, is technically true. But the spring of 2008 is far from an ideal measuring point for energy prices, as it was the peak of a huge oil bubble that approached $150 per barrel. Currently, oil is hovering around $90 per barrel and expected to rise.
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