Melvin Watt: “I rise in strong, vigorous opposition to this bill and title III, and I rise today to protest the shortsighted cuts…”

“I rise in strong, vigorous opposition to this bill and title III, and I rise today to protest the shortsighted cuts included in this mean-spirited bill. In an effort to frantically balance the budget on the backs of poor and middle income families, Republicans have completely lost sight of those important, cost-effective programs which work well. One such program is the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program. This program is not welfare. Each State participates in this program. It reaches more than 5.8 million people nationwide. Last year, the average benefit for the 452,000 recipients in my home State of North Carolina was $91. Seventy-nine percent of these recipients have an average income of less than $8,000. In many cases this was the safety net that kept the poor and elderly from being cold or freezing to death. How can we expect these people, whose annual income is less than the poverty level, to survive these vicious cuts? These cuts border on being criminal, Mr. Chairman. If they're not criminal, they're certainly irresponsible. We should not penalize these people because they are poor. Yet that is exactly what we are going to do by passing this mean-spirited bill.”