White House budget chief defends cut to heating aid

The top White House budget official on Monday defended plans to slash billions of dollars in low-income heating and cooling aid in the fiscal 2012 budget proposal.

President Obama has drawn fire from several Democrats over the White House proposal to cut $2.5 billion — or roughly 50 percent — from the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program.

But Jacob Lew, who heads the White House Office of Management and Budget, said the budget proposal that Obama is sending to Congress on Monday is packed with tough choices aimed at freezing discretionary spending. Lew, in a CNN interview, also said the proposed heating-aid cut reflects price trends.

“It's a program that's done an enormous amount of good to help people pay their bills. But in 2008, the reason it doubled from $2.5 [billion] to $5 billion was because of a rapid spike in energy prices and it was a way of addressing the fact that energy prices had gone up to a very, very high level,” Lew said.

“Energy prices now are much more in line with where they were in 2008 before that price increase. And you know, we looked at the budget and we said we can't just level off at the new funding level,” he added.