LIHEAP Is Victim Of States Rights Agenda

Statement By Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr.
Tuesday, June 30, 1998
Chicago, Illinois

The Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, HHS and Education recently eliminated funding for the federal Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP). The LIHEAP program provides energy assistance to the working poor, the elderly and families with young children. It helps families across the entire country that are truly in need -- in fact two-thirds of those receiving LIHEAP benefits have incomes less than $8,000 per year.

In the State of Illinois, 70% of LIHEAP clients earn less than $8,000 a year, 32.2% of LIHEAP clients are elderly and 38.7% of LIHEAP clients had households with disabilities?

In 1997, 48,211 households in the 2nd CD were able to keep warm thanks to LIHEAP assistance. That is about 27 percent of the households in the District.

This is by far the largest number of private residents in any Congressional District in Illinois to receive LIHEAP benefits. In fact, the 2nd CD had twice as many families dependent on heating assistance than the next leading Congressional Districts in Illinois.

The next highest number of LIHEAP families were about 20,000 in Congressman Lipinski's District and about 19,000 in Congressman Gutierrez district.

Of those 48,211 families in my District who were dependent on heating assistance:

* 12,000 went to elderly residents on fixed income * 16,400 went to residents with disabilities * 21,200 went to families with children under the age of 6.

Total benefits paid in District were $12.3 million, for an average of about $256 per low-income household.

Without these benefits, many elderly, disabled and children under age 6 would have stayed cold last winter.

LIHEAP is a model program that benefits those truly in need, with minimal overhead costs, thus LIHEAP should not be characterized as corporate welfare or a subsidy for utilities since utilities are being paid for the services they are providing to the poor and undeserved.

There is no need to cut a program so vital to our most vulnerable citizens. It's wrong to force those less fortunate to choose between heating their homes and feeding their children. So why are they doing it?

This is part of a congressional states rights agenda. The rationale for this cutback is that the the federal rationale for the program has long ceased to exist. They believe that it can best be administered at the state level.

The problem is that the national need has not disappeared! For those of us who are trying to build a more perfect union we must insist that the federal need requires a federal standard and federal administration to insure a federal minimum of decency to our most vulnerable citizens.

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