The Social Poets: Heated Politics and Summer Heatwave Kill The Vulnerable

Photo by saturnism @ flickr

The Social Poets: Heated Politics and Summer Heatwave Kill The Vulnerable: "From Denny: Congress and President Obama have so slashed the federal budget on the backs of the low-income and retired Americans that many are dying in this heatwave. What has happened?

Federal weather assistance fund broke

About $5 billion from a federal fund is spread around the states every year to help subsidize those households in need of covering their heating and cooling bills. The usual gamesmanship in Washington is now wrecking havoc on the most personal level.

Our federal government generally reserves several hundred million dollars to distribute during weather emergencies. We have certainly seen our fair share of weather emergencies for several years now.

America has the most violent and extreme weather of any nation on the planet. Just this one year we have experienced monster hurricanes, tornados wiping out whole towns, raging floods from the Spring snow melt, fires from drought-striken areas of the country, extreme cold in the winter and now extreme heat this summer.

That emergency weather fund used to be $590 million but recently Congress slashed it by almost two-thirds to only $200 million. Why is that significant? Before the heatwave began the fund went dry, completely empty of assistance monies."