Trump's Budget Axes Program That Keeps Poor People From Freezing To Death At Home

Source: msn/Huff Post

12h


WASHINGTON ― President Donald Trump wants to make some pretty devastating cuts to the Department of Health and Human Services in his new 2026 budget request. But one of the cruelest is a line buried in HHS’ Budget in Brief: “The budget eliminates funding for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program.”

The federal block grant program, often referred to as LIHEAP, has been around for decades and helps millions of people in low-income households pay their energy bills. Critically, it helps seniors, families with children, and people with disabilities keep their heat on in the dead of winter and cool air blowing in the sweltering days of summer. More than 6 million households currently rely on LIHEAP for help with energy bills.

The Trump administration appears to justify gutting LIHEAP by tying it to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in government, all of which Trump wants to eradicate. “Savings come from eliminating radical diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and critical race theory programs, which weaponized large swaths of the Federal Government against the American people and moving programs that are better suited for States and localities to provide,” reads the HHS budget brief, just before it calls for zeroing out LIHEAP funding.

To be sure, the president’s budget request isn’t going to become law. It has to make its way through Congress, where lawmakers will make all kinds of changes to it. But it’s going to fall on Republicans to fight to preserve LIHEAP. The Trump administration has already crippled the low-income energy program. On April 1, HHS announced it was putting 10,000 federal employees on administrative leave through June 2, at which they would be terminated. This included the entire staff running LIHEAP. Twenty state attorneys general intervened in May and sued HHS, claiming the mass firings were illegal and calling for everyone’s jobs to be restored. The lawsuit is still underway.

Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/politics/government/trump-s-budget-axes-program-that-keeps-poor-people-from-freezing-to-death-at-home/ar-AA1FXu93