Posted on 03/08/2006 10:21:17 AM PST by newgeezer
WASHINGTON -- The Senate has agreed to put an additional $1 billion this year into a program to help poor people with energy costs, but only after overcoming resistance from warm state senators who said those suffering from summer heat weren't getting their fair share.
The additional spending would increase to $3.1 billion the amount the federal government will have this year for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, a decades-old program that subsidizes heating and cooling costs for poor families.
The legislation, which still must be considered by the House, passed by a voice vote Tuesday, but only after a lengthy debate between northern state senators, who said rising heating costs were creating a crisis in their states, and lawmakers from warmer states who claimed they were being shortchanged.
Sen. Olympia Snowe, D-Maine, sponsor of the legislation, said people in her state were going without food to pay for heating or, in more dire cases, being hospitalized with hypothermia. "Come to Maine and tell us about it being a mild winter," she said.
Snowe's original bill would have distributed $250 million under an existing formula that she said would mainly benefit warm-weather states. The remaining $750 million would have been labeled contingency funding and disbursed at the discretion of the president. The money was shifted from $1 billion that had been set aside for fiscal 2007.
But that wasn't acceptable to several of her Republican colleagues from the South and Southwest, who said that division would only exacerbate the program's traditional slant toward heating rather than cooling assistance.
Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., said LIHEAP spending tends to be front-ended, with the money being used up in the winter months so nothing is left when the temperatures in Arizona climb over 100 degrees. He said the Arizona LIHEAP program reaches only 4 percent of those eligible for assistance.
Kyl said all the money should be decided by formula so that all states were guaranteed a fair share.
"We don't deny there is a need," said Rep. John Ensign, R-Nev. But "is it fair across the country or does it benefit some states and not other states?"
Snowe finally offered a compromise under which 50 percent of the new money would be distributed according to the existing formula, and the other 50 percent be considered emergency spending. That proposal was approved 68-31.
"We're denying the president the ability to respond to an emergency," she said of the Kyl proposal. "States are going to receive funding when there is no emergency?" she added. "How does that make sense?"
Congress authorized $5.1 billion for home energy aid as part of an energy bill passed last summer, but budgetary constraints pushed the final figure for fiscal 2006 down to $2.1 billion, largely unchanged from the $2 billion level that has held steady in recent years.
Last week Snowe successfully overcame opposition from conservative Republicans, led by Rep. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., who tried to kill the bill on the grounds that the spending was not offset by cuts in other programs.
Federal assistance for home energy costs, dating back to the oil crisis of the 1970s, now reaches some 5 million families. Proponents of expanding the program say the $2 billion budget doesn't go very far when there are some 33 million households, spending about $55 billion a year in energy costs, eligible for the program.
___
Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program: http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/liheap/
To be fair, it was the Local News Leader which did the edit of the AP story for its own use. The Washington Post has the entire story as it appears above. But, due to FR's copyright stuff, the WP could not be cited as the linked source.
I posted that quote a number of times while Congress was shoveling money at Katrina's victims. More than a few FReepers insisted I was terrible for doing so.
"Where does President Bush have a vote in the Senate?"
>>>>>>>>>>>............
ever heard the word VETO??
Ever heard of a Line Item Veto?
What do you want to do? stop all in one bill over one line or allow the Executive to cut out things within that bill so that the other business of government is allowed to proceed?
Still doesn't change the fact that the President doesn't have a vote in the Senate.
Or the fact that Tread only wants you to read his crap.
I need about $4000 a year for Gasoline expenditures.. *cough* Energy expenditures. Write check to
John Q. Taxpayer
Anytown USA
The Senate has agreed to put an additional $1 billion this year into a program to help poor people with energy costs, but only after overcoming resistance from warm state senators who said those suffering from summer heat weren't getting their fair share.
I know...this in between BS just pisses me off. Either we're a socialist state or a constitutional republic; you can't have both.
I almost wish we'd go socialist, just so the bleeding hearts can whine when everyone quits their jobs. Why work when there's 'free' money.
between this, welfare, and free health care, it's pretty much a free ride being poor in this country... in the mean time the rest of us have to work our butts off to get the things the "poor" get for free... If you want to see real poor people, try a third world country.. we have no real poor here.
$1 billion isn't nearly enough. Heat, cold - doesn't matter. I say every American is entitled to $1 million of free money. Come to think of it, let's not forget inflation: make it $3 million.
Hey.... I resemble that remark :)
Years ago I used to do painting work for a guy that had a contract with HUD. We did alot of work in low income, rent assistance, energy assistance residences. I can't tell you how many did not bother to use the storm windows which in most cases just involved sliding down the aluminum storm window (didn't even have to go on a ladder), and leaving windows open in brutal WI winters. If they don't have to pay for it, they don't give a crap. Another problem, the money goes directly to the residents instead of going as a credit to the utility company...guess who doesn't get paid? So the taxpayer winds up paying for their own heat, paying taxes to pay for someone elses, and higher costs for utilities because the utility companies get stiffed by the "energy assisted", triple screw IMHO
Poor people here ALWAYS have cable.
If he were to veto the entire bill, they'd have to repass it without the objectionable item. If he does it enough times, they'll get the message and not include things like that in the first place. Reagan knew how to do that, and there's no reason why Bush shouldn't. He isn't even protesting against any of this.
The line-item veto would be very dangerous, because it would give him the power to reward and punish individual Congressmen who don't vote the way he wants. And it will do nothing whatsoever to reduce pork. Just look at how it's worked at the state level. The states that have it are just as pork-packed as those that don't. It's completely useless. At best, it's just a feel-good measure to make it look like something's being done about the problem. It's no substitute for a backbone.
Maybe,just maybe, they also MOVED to a warmer climate?
I like the idea of the line item veto.
Take this ports thing for example. The Congresscritters today use big bills to slip other things into it. They are connecting the ports thing with a defense bill.
It isn't right to do things that way. I just use that as an example. There have been many other bills that had horrible additions to them, but the main part of the bill included something this President ran on so he signed it. A lot of it came when the Senate was still split relatively evenly between the relatively conservative and the liberal GOP and dems, but things are shifting again I think.
Well I don't. It gives the President too much power over Congressmen, as I indicated, while providing too little protection against actual abuses.
I might be able to see the argument if the President had been in the habit of pointing to portions of bills that he'd been "forced" to sign and criticizing Congress for them and saying that he would have vetoed them if he had the option of doing so. But he refuses to even take that much of a stand. How's that supposed to earn anyone's confidence that he has the right motivation for wanting this power?
If Congress passes bills with unacceptable riders, he should really get in the habit of vetoing them until they get the message.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.