We're getting signs that President Obama's soon to be released budget will hurt those living in poverty. The AP reports:
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama wants to cut $2.5 billion from a $5 billion home heating aid program for the poor, a person familiar with his 2012 budget proposal said Wednesday, halving the popular fund as he looks for places to rein in federal spending.
The proposal would cut the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program to its 2008 level of about $2.5 billion.
The person discussed the details on condition of anonymity because Obama's spending outline has not been formally released. The White House plans to send the proposal to Congress on Monday. The plan is for the budget year beginning Oct. 1.
Separately, House Republicans on Wednesday outlined a plan for $35 billion in immediate spending cuts that would practically eliminate the program's contingency fund. Republicans would cut $400 million from the $490 million fund.
Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., urged Obama not to cut the funding. He said more than 3 million families would lose assistance.
"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.
This isn't the first signal sent by the White House this week:
In Sunday's edition of The New York Times, Jacob Lew, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, wrote that Obama will seek to pare 7.5 percent, or $300 million, from Community Development Block Grants in the budget he proposes next week.
Obama has said he is committed to reducing the country's projected $1.5 trillion deficit by cutting spending in many areas.
But city and county officials, still smarting from the 2007-09 economic recession that devastated municipal budgets, say lower grant amounts from the federal government will hurt their poorest citizens and they fear Obama will suggest deeper cuts.
"It is literally the lifeblood for creating affordable housing in Philadelphia," Michael Nutter, the city's mayor told Reuters, saying the program commonly called "CDBG" has helped get homeless people off the street and built up neighborhoods in the City of Brotherly Love.
"Everyone knows that it works. You will hear as much about it from Republican mayors as from Democrat mayors," he said.
The grants help finance housing, sewer, streets and economic development in low- and moderate-income neighborhoods, Lew wrote. He added the Obama administration is "very aware of the financial difficulties" cities and counties face.
"CDBG funds provide immediate, direct, and tangible benefits to millions of Americans right where they live," said National Association of Counties Executive Director Larry Naake in a statement, calling Lew's proposal "alarming."
President Obama said in his State of the Union address last month that the budget shouldn't be balanced on the "on the backs of our most vulnerable citizens." He needs to keep that promise.
House Republicans have already released their budget proposals. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities notes:
House Republican leaders announced yesterday the next steps in their plan to impose deep cuts in non-security discretionary (annually appropriated) programs. Under the plan, non-security programs would shrink, on average, by 15.4 percent below current funding under the continuing resolution (which expires on March 4) and 19.4 percent below what President Obama proposed for fiscal year 2011. Programs and activities that face the risk of such cuts include funding for K-12 education, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Centers for Disease Control, and food safety inspections, and a number of programs that serve low-income children, seniors, and people with disabilities.
Their budget would increase poverty and suffering for millions.
Cutting programs for the poorest of the poor to help pay for tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans is a sin. As U.S. religious leaders have argued, we need President Obama to forcefully articulate a different vision of what America should be. Everyone understands the need to bring the deficit under control after the reckless economic policies of the last decade. That being said, hurting those who are already suffering the most should not be an option.
