Obama to slash home heating assistance for low-income families and seniors

wsws.org, Feb. 12, 2011

With the Obama administration set to release its budget next Monday, details of the savage cuts being prepared are coming to the surface. In the largest cut thus far, the administration plans to slash funding in half for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), which helps the poor, elderly and handicapped pay their heating and cooling costs.

The already underfunded program would see its budget cut to $2.5 billion from $5 billion in 2010, leaving funding roughly equivalent to what was available during the Clinton years. In 2009, the program disbursed $8 billion.
The axing of LIHEAP amounts to a literal death sentence for many of those unable to pay exorbitant utility rates. It will result in more freezing deaths in the winter and heat-related deaths during the summer, as well as more fatal house fires as victims of utility shutoffs desperately seek to keep their families warm in bitter cold temperatures.

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