The Bush administration is proposing to ax $300 million from the $1.7 billion Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), a federal program that provides energy subsidies to some 4.5 million people. If the projected cuts are enacted some 438,000 families will lose financial assistance for their heating bills.

The proposed reduction is the latest cutback to LIHEAP, which was established in 1981. Funding for the program peaked in 1986 at $2.1 billion and steadily declined to $1.3 billion in 1995. By 1997 it stood at $1 billion, before being increased to the current level.

The 1997 cuts were part of a package of reductions in social spending incorporated into the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act signed into law by William Clinton. The law’s principal aim was to eliminate the federally funded entitlement, Aid to Families with Dependent Children, which was part of the 1935 Social Security Act. The Democratic president had promised to "end welfare as we know it" during his 1992 election campaign.

In the face of the economic slowdown, combined with rising utility rates and other cuts in social entitlements, the slashing of LIHEAP means many working-class families will have a rough time staying warm this winter. Under the proposed cuts, still to be approved by Congress, 80,000 people in the state of New York will be kicked out of the heating program. In Illinois another 35,000 will be eliminated.

People’s Energy, the Chicago utility company that provides natural gas service to nearly 1 million people in the city, has reported that some 10,000 customers are going without heating service. According to media reports many families have had their natural gas service disconnected for at least two years.

Ann Brown, a 75-year-old resident, told reporters that her gas service had been shut off two years ago when utility rates soared and she fell behind in payments. "I couldn’t pay the gas bill and keep my lights on," she said, explaining that she pays $700 of her $1,000 monthly Social Security check toward her house mortgage. Brown heats her home with electric space heaters.

In late November protesters in Chicago demonstrated outside the People’s Energy building and the mayor’s office demanding that the utility restore service to homes where the natural gas had been disconnected because of nonpayment. Government officials in Illinois claim that there are no funds to resume the service.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home