by Jamil Ragland CTNewsJunkie
HARTFORD, CT — Connecticut’s two US senators have decried what they called the Trump administration’s “cruel” cuts to a program that helps hundreds of thousands of residents heat and cool their homes.
The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, or LIHEAP, which has existed for over 40 years, provides energy assistance for roughly 6.7 million households across the United States. In FY 2023, the program provided nearly $123 million in assistance to 101,181 families in Connecticut, with an average disbursement of $655 for heating assistance. Some 47% of the state’s families receiving assistance through LIHEAP include at least one vulnerable member, defined as an elderly person, young child, or person with a disability.
Despite the program’s reputation for success, the Trump administration fired all of the two dozen staff members running LIHEAP during the massive layoffs at the Department of Health and Human Services this April. The president’s latest budget proposal eliminates funding for the program altogether.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-CT, said that the elimination of the program would lead to suffering and increased healthcare costs for the most vulnerable residents in the state, who would be unable to heat and cool their homes.
“Keeping people healthy and safe is the goal of LIHEAP, and that goal is drastically undermined by Elon Musk and Donald Trump,” Blumenthal said. “Now, the administration has already eliminated the staff for LIHEAP. If you don’t have the staff, there’s no way to access the money. So they might as well completely eliminate the money, which is in fact what they seem to be planning to do in the budget that they are working on right now as we speak.”
Sen. Chris Murphy, D-CT, described the cuts to the energy assistance program as indicative of a “billionaire’s mindset” in the Trump administration that sees no problem in decimating public services that people rely on.
“None of them know what it’s like to be poor,” he said. “None of them know what it’s like to have to tell your child that the heat might not work this week, that you should just pull the blanket over your head tonight. None of them ever sent their kids to public education. It’s public schools. So they’re okay with destroying the public school system. None of them rely on Medicaid, which is why they’re choosing to throw millions of people off of Medicaid.”
Murphy said that they would fight the elimination of LIHEAP in Congress and in the courts. He vowed that Democrats wouldn’t let the Trump budget pass unless it “does the right thing” by the LIHEAP program. He also said that Democrats would challenge the firing of the LIHEAP staff as unconstitutional, as Congress had already appropriated funds for the program for this fiscal year and the executive branch cannot undermine that.
The decision to cut LIHEAP is “unconscionable,” Department of Social Services Commissioner Andrea Barton Reeves stated.
“This is a full-on assault against middle-class, low-income, and poor people in this country, and it has to stop now,” she said. “And it stops with making sure that people have what they need, whether that is through food, whether that’s through heating assistance, and whether it’s through medical insurance through Medicaid. The war on the poor has been claimed by the Trump administration, but what the Trump administration needs to hear from the state of Connecticut is that we are ready to fight back.”
LIHEAP is facilitated by Operation Fuel at the state level in Connecticut. Perkin Simpson, CEO of Operation Fuel, shared a story of gratitude he received from a family whose savings were depleted by medical costs. He said that stories like theirs demonstrate that there is a human element at play when it comes to assistance programs.
“What can you do? Let people know about the issue,” Simpson said. “Support our leaders and the legislators as they advocate for every family throughout the state and beyond, throughout this country, but especially here in Connecticut.”
Blumenthal said that the Trump administration was looking to kick people off social programs in multiple ways, whether through changing redetermination for program eligibility to every six months instead of every year or enforcing stricter work requirements. He said the administration was looking for ways to put up hurdles and increase administrative costs on the states.
“I think if you view it from a macro level, what’s happening here is that the Musk and Trump slash-and-trash administration is in effect ripping apart the social fabric of our aid for people who are most vulnerable and most in need,” he said.