About Me 0103: Making Money Program

Andrew Restuccia’s report in the Hill on the funding of a welfare program for heating and air-conditioning bills is a textbook example of the kind of irresponsible reporting from Washington that directs the national discussion instead of simply informing people. I do not mean to pick on Andrew Restuccia or his editors. Fine people all, I am sure. What I dislike is the casual way they toss aside objectivity — and the way his report helps misshape the national discussion on entitlements by making another program a sacred cow that cannot be trimmed.

The headline bothered me: “As winter approaches, Congress cuts funds for home heating help,” as did the story’s beginning: “Just days before the holiday season, the Obama administration released more than $800 million to states as part of a program to help low-income people pay their heating bills during the winter months. But the move comes as the program, known as the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, faces major funding cuts. A year-end spending bill approved by Congress in recent days slashes funding for LIHEAP. The legislation funds the program at $3.48 billion, down from about $4.7 billion last year. That’s about a 25 percent reduction.”

Left out of this story was perspective. From the National Journal: “In 2008, the government spent $2.6 billion on LIHEAP. In 2009, the figure jumped to $8.1 billion.”

So the 25% reduction from 2010 is actually a 34% increase from 2008.

The 2010 level was an 81% increase from the 2008 spending. Small wonder our federal deficit tripled when entitlement spending. That is unsustainable.

I also wonder if utility and heating oil companies do not factor in government assistance in setting their prices, and I also wonder what the recipients of this welfare do with the money they used to set aside for air-conditioning and heating. More Wi?

Couching cuts in unsustainable programs as heartless — “Just days before the holiday season…” — does a disservice to readers, most of whom are only vaguely aware of this program and assume a cutback in it will lead to people having their gas cut off in winter. In West Virginia that is illegal. I am sure other statates have similoar protections.

By the way, LIHEAP like many entitlement programs is a magnet for fraud.

From About.com:

The review of LIHEAP beneficiaries across seven states found, among other things, that the Department of Health and Human Services sent 11,000 dead people across seven states $3.9 million to pay for heating and cooling costs.

About 260,000 applications from LIHEAP beneficiaries – 9 percent of households receiving benefits in the states investigated – contained invalid Social Security numbers, names, and dates of birth, according to the GAO.

“Thousands of cases show strong indications of fraud and improper benefits,” the report stated. “But because of the invalid identity information noted above – a lack of a valid Social Security number makes it impossible to fully investigate such cases – these numbers are understated.”

The LIHEAP investigation also uncovered 725 instances of prisoners receiving benefits totaling about $370,000, and 1,100 instances in which federal employees whose salaries exceeded the maximum LIHEAP income threshold getting payments totaling $671,000.

But I am heartless for pointing this out.

Left out of this story was perspective. From the National Journal: “In 2008, the government spent $2.6 billion on LIHEAP. In 2009, the figure jumped to $8.1 billion.”

So the 25% reduction from 2010 is actually a 34% increase from 2008.

The 2010 level was an 81% increase from the 2008 spending. Small wonder our federal deficit tripled when entitlement spending. That is unsustainable.

By the way, LIHEAP like many entitlement programs is a magnet for fraud.

From About.com:

But I am heartless for pointing this out.

About Me 0103

Monday, December 26, 2011

Making Money Program

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