Chilled to the bone
Dems cool to Obama's heating cuts
politico.com
One place President Obama will look to as he seeks cuts for his 2012 budget is a program that helps the poor heat their homes, which he wants to cut in half.
Obama will propose in his budget that funding for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program be slashed from $5 billion to $2.5 billion, the amount it had in 2008, the AP reports.
The proposed cuts to the heating program already are drawing criticism from liberal lawmakers in cold states. Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry warned in a letter to Obama that more than 3 million families would lose aid if the money is taken away, and New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen said the cut would have a “severe impact” on “vulnerable citizens.”
“I’ve always supported serious efforts to restore fiscal sanity, 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,” Kerry said in a statement.
The White House budget director, Jack Lew, foreshadowed such proposals a few days ago in a New York Times op-ed, in which he wrote that Obama is seeking cuts in programs that he likes.
“Make no mistake: this will not be easy. It will require tough choices since every decision to invest in one program will necessitate a cut somewhere else,” he wrote. “We had to choose programs that, absent the fiscal situation, we would not cut.”
The report of the White House’s plan to cut the heating program emerged as Obama travels to one of the coldest places in the country on Thursday: Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
One place President Obama will look to as he seeks cuts for his 2012 budget is a program that helps the poor heat their homes, which he wants to cut in half.
Obama will propose in his budget that funding for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program be slashed from $5 billion to $2.5 billion, the amount it had in 2008, the AP reports.
The proposed cuts to the heating program already are drawing criticism from liberal lawmakers in cold states. Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry warned in a letter to Obama that more than 3 million families would lose aid if the money is taken away, and New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen said the cut would have a “severe impact” on “vulnerable citizens.”
“I’ve always supported serious efforts to restore fiscal sanity, 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,” Kerry said in a statement.
The White House budget director, Jack Lew, foreshadowed such proposals a few days ago in a New York Times op-ed, in which he wrote that Obama is seeking cuts in programs that he likes.
“Make no mistake: this will not be easy. It will require tough choices since every decision to invest in one program will necessitate a cut somewhere else,” he wrote. “We had to choose programs that, absent the fiscal situation, we would not cut.”
The report of the White House’s plan to cut the heating program emerged as Obama travels to one of the coldest places in the country on Thursday: Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
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