2022 has been a memorable 12 months in relation to power prices. Hovering fuel costs dominated each politics and pocketbooks within the early a part of this summer time, and presaged a equally costly winter heating season. Whereas oil and pure fuel costs have come down considerably since they peaked, the price of each are nonetheless a lot larger than they have been presently final 12 months due to the affect on power costs from the struggle in Ukraine, mixed with the best inflation seen in many years. To make issues worse, the Farmer’s Almanac is predicting a cold, snowy fall and winter.
All of that fashioned the backdrop once I noticed the headline, “Republicans Begin Submitting Petitions to Force an Energy Assistance Special Session.” I used to be ready to blast the state GOP for being so heartless as to try to chop power help proper earlier than winter started. However then one thing sudden occurred: I truly learn the article. I used to be shocked to seek out that not solely have been Republicans advocating for the Low Revenue Family Power Help Program (LIHEAP), however calling for a rise in funding.
Each Democrats and Republicans agree that this system wants extra money. However truly growing the funding appears to have reversed the normal roles that the events inhabit.
The distinction is how the events suppose it must be funded. Republicans are calling for a particular session of the legislature, the place they suggest that $120 million be moved from different state applications into the LIHEAP fund. Democrats have balked at this plan, suggesting as an alternative that the federal authorities might present extra funding later within the 12 months (each of Connecticut’s US senators and Rep. Joe Courtney have signed a letter requesting extra money from Congress).
The LIHEAP looks like the type of no-brainer program that each events could be keen to help by compromise. The LIHEAP started in 1981 to assist low-income households afford heating and cooling prices, avoiding the “warmth or eat” dilemma that working individuals and people on fastened incomes usually encounter. Throughout the pandemic, funding for this system elevated dramatically in response to thousands and thousands of Individuals shedding their jobs. That additional funding is ready to run out, lowering the state’s annual allotment from $140 million final 12 months to $79 million this 12 months.
I perceive that each events have political motives when contemplating the easiest way to fund LIHEAP. Republicans are attempting to hammer dwelling the concept that Lamont and his allies have made dwelling in Connecticut too costly, and passing “emergency” funding to maintain households heat performs into that messaging. Then again, Democrats have pushed the argument that the state is in its finest fiscal state in years beneath their stewardship, and that there’s no must spend state cash if federal {dollars} are incoming.
What’s significantly fascinating about this political spat is how the events have swapped the normal roles we’ve come to affiliate them with. Republicans have been identified for years because the occasion of fiscal duty, extra keen to chop social welfare applications than collect signatures to develop them. Democrats have sometimes been in favor of spending extra money to develop the social security web, not specializing in finances surpluses. The state of affairs reveals that the governing philosophy of the 2 main events is topic to vary when the political winds blow in a brand new path.
Whereas the struggle over LIHEAP funding is almost certainly a one-off battle in an election 12 months, it illustrates how the events change over time. Individuals usually surprise how the occasion of Lincoln and emancipation got here to oppose virtually all main civil rights laws within the twentieth century. It was the results of many tiny inflection factors like this one, the place out of the blue the political orthodoxy was turned on its head for electoral expediency. The identical factor occurred when Democrats, who handed the Nice Society social program expansions a era earlier than, then handed welfare reform within the Nineteen Nineties.
Hopefully, LIHEAP will obtain the cash it wants to make sure that Connecticut’s households have the assistance they should keep heat this winter. This will merely go as a cynical recreation of rooster in a contentious election 12 months, or we might look again at this as a type of pivotal moments the place politics shifted and a brand new established order was established. Solely time will inform.
