Tom Harkin: “It would gut the whole program. To answer the Senator's question, we always come in for emergency funds. But here is…”

“It would gut the whole program. To answer the Senator's question, we always come in for emergency funds. But here is what happens. When you don't fund the LIHEAP Program enough, what happens is family--let's face it; the average family gets about 215 bucks. It's what, around 30 percent, I think, of their heating bill. But what happens--and we know this from experience in my State of Iowa especially--when they don't know if they are going to get the money to pay their heating bills--and you know elderly people are very proud. They don't want to be on welfare and most of them are not on welfare. They are getting Social Security, very small Social Security checks. What they do is they turn the heat down and they put their shawls on, they put on coats, they wear coats around the house. And then what happens. Well, they get ill and then they have to go to the hospital, and they go to the emergency rooms. We have found this time and time and time again. That is what poor people, and especially elderly people, will do when they don't know if they are going to get their heating money. And so again, the crisis is real for these people, very, very real.”