White House, Congress Cut Heating Assistance to 1 Million Homes

by Yvette Carnell

In many parts of the U.S., it’s been a warmer than average winter thus far, and considering that the government is cutting heating assistance to over 1 million homes, we should all thank mother nature.

Congress and the White House agreed to cut the Low Income House Energy Assistance Program (LHEAP) by 25 percent, or in human terms, cut assistance to 1 million homes. Households qualify for the program if their income is at or below 150 percent of the poverty level or 60 percent of their state’s median income.

On average, LHEAP recipients receive $419 per month in heating payments. The government paid $4.7 billion for heating assistance in fiscal year 2011 while the 2012 apportionment is set at $3.5 billion. The cut happened in December, just before lawmakers left town for their break.

According to the National Energy Assistance Directors’ Association, 90 percent of households that received heating assistance in 2011 have at least one “vulnerable” member of their household, meaning at least one member of the household is either over sixty or disabled.

With heating oil at its highest since 1990, this is set to be one of the coldest winters ever for America’s poor.

Yvette Carnell is a former Capitol Hill and campaign staffer turned writer. She is currently an editor and contributor to Yourblackworld.

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Michael

My heart goes out to all the families that will get cut off from LHEAP. It’s funny that America always finds billions of dollars to fund wars, give foreign aid or to bail out corporations, but when it comes to addressing the needs or her citizens, she always comes up short.
Wondrous Dragon

The country is actually run by thugs and cutthroats. Believe it or not!

When some say “government” did this or that, remember that it is our money! They have been taking our money and the profits made from the resources of a nation that belongs to the people, and using it to benefit the ‘elite’ and themselves!
We, the citizenry, have been made so brainwashed, conditioned, and numb of mind, that we cannot see that politicians are not only bought and paid for, but are opportunistic people (from Obama on down) who were foisted into our social consciousness by the elite-owned media in the first place! (If the elite-owned media doesn’t promote them we never hear their names or anything about them)!

The elite’s overwhelming propaganda machine has convoluted the social-structure in every way they deemed necessary to advance their overall designs on us and our wealth. We are left adhering to the rudiments and concoctions designed by master-criminals, and they have created such a woven pattern of corruption mixed with social-norms that we are left confused, unaware, or ignorant to the fact that we are all caught up in a great-big-sham!

So our national wealth, (which belongs to “We The People”), gets redirected, and stolen from us right in our faces, as we are plied with lies, cons, schemes, propaganda, etc., by retarded men/women posing as public servants (politicians), and who infest and infect society with “trickle down” corruption and abuse! We are all so used to the “norms” of this everyday cycle disguised as democracy/capitalism that we are unable to see that everything about the whole make-up and functioning of this society is totally wrong!

So of course they are going to cheat the poor, (who suffer from poverty that the elite have created)! Of course they are blaming us for the problems they are causing in their zeal to help each other steal the wealth and resources of this and other nations! Some people are so twisted of mind that they stupidly agree with these world crooks!

I’m almost certain that the only way to remedy our world problems is to insist that all of the “elite” turn over their ill gotten wealth back to the (people of the world), and step down as leaders, kings/queens, dictators, and presidents, etc.! Take over all elite-owned corporations and especially their brainwashing media corporations. Take down anywhere we find over-extravagance. And finally pass laws that truly benefit the masses and restrict pandemic crime, greed for power and wealth!
It is difficult to change such gross world wrongdoings to right! It is difficult to curb individual psychotic penchants toward selfishness, accumulation, and hoarding, but if it cannot be done we are doomed to see billions of humans needlessly suffer and die forever!