BULLSHIT!
http://blog.reidreport.com/2011/02/the-obama-budget-truth-or-dare/The Obama budget “goes after students, minorities, and the poor”
While the Pell Grant cut provided for some tough early headlines for the White House, more sober assessments are proving the proposal to be less horrible than advertised. The Pell proposal would leave in place the full $5,500 a year cap for students (Republicans would prefer to slash that amount) while eliminating the second available grant students could get in the same year for summer courses. The summer Pell grant happens to be the one most often used by students at for-profit schools (ie the University of Phoenix.) The administration admits that their Pell proposal would mostly impact the for profit schools, which many people have criticized for taking students for a ride on the federal dime. Currently, the for-profit school industry is engaged in a knock-down, drag-out lobbying push to preserve a number of subsidies the Obama administration is looking to cut loose.
The chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus ripped into the budget on Monday, which may be why the White House planned an eleventh our conference call specifically for black press and community leaders (the mayor of Tallahassee and the editor of the Miami Times were both on the call, along with several chamber of commerce types, and your humble blogger.) The main source of CBC anger centers around proposed reductions in Community Development Block Grants (CDBGs), which help fund low income housing-related programs. CDBGs were also the concern of most of the people on the call, which is probably why before the call, the administration released a list of programs and directives designed to boost MBEs, including a significant boost in aid to Historically Black Colleges and in Small Business Administration funding for programs targeting minorities. And as the WaPo points out, the trade-off in the block grant decreases is a significant boost in funding for programs that help the homeless and those in need of rent assistance. Interestingly enough, there was almost no push-back on the call when the two administration spokespeople, Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett, and Dr. Cecilia Rouse, a member of the president’s Council of Economic Advisors, explained the CDBG trade-offs.
By far, the biggest contretemps over the budget from liberals have been the Obama administration’s proposed cuts to the state-administered program LIHEAP, which provides energy assistance to the poor.
That cut is drawing the attention of liberal Obama-watchers, who see it as a sign of further capitulation to the right, or even of abject cruelty on the part of the president. And news of the proposed cut created bipartisan agita on Capitol Hill, with Republican lawmakers from West Virginia to Massachusetts condemning the cuts along with the liberal blogosphere.
And while the optics of this particular cut aren’t good, here again, the story isn’t necessarily as bad as the headline.
On the White House Af-Am call, I asked about LIHEAP, and was told it was one of the “difficult” but necessary cost savings the president was proposing. On the call, Rouse explained that LIHEAP had seen its funding essentially doubled in the president’s first two years due to spiking energy prices. Now that prices have leveled out, the White House has decided to return funding to pre-spike levels. However, Rouse said “rest assured, if energy prices spike again, the White House is prepared to bring funding levels back up.” In a follow-up email after the call, a White House spokesman explained that LIHEAP is in fact a block grant, meaning money transfered to the states and administered by them. And because the money is paid directly to utilities, not customers, with energy prices down but the funding still at spike levels, it has essentially served as a federal subsidy to those energy companies.
That message was reinforced by DNC chief Tim Kaine yesterday, when he pointed out to the Huffpo:
“What is being cut are the LIHEAP funds which are transferre d to weatheriza tion programs, which have already been funded by the stimulus. Without these cuts, taxpayers would essentiall y be paying for the same weatheriza tion programs twice.
President Obama is keeping his promise to cut tax loopholes and subsidies, in this case, subsidies for energy companies. As the National Journal article points out, critics say that the program is poorly administer ed and that, contrary to intentions , it’s become a subsidy for energy companies.”
By the way, those who are painting the budget as draconian should remember that Obama’s 2012 budget is actually larger overall than the one he submitted a year ago — one that was praised by liberals at the time for its progressiveness. And not for nothing, but the budget does raise taxes and cut oil and gas subsidies, no small things.
The second knock on the budget that strikes me as less than accurate?