When I was stationed in Massachusetts in the Army, there were several people just on our block alone getting heating assistance even though they could afford to pay for their own heating. A couple of them viewed heating assistance as an income supplement to which they were entitled--they freely admitted that, yeah, they could pay for their own heating but that, shucks, they wouldn't have as much spending money if they did.
Its like anything else
Earnings based. If you have earnings below a certain level, you are entitled to assistance
Those folks made as much as or more than I did. The income verification was non-existent, at least as far as I could tell.
The Trump administration's point, and it's a valid one, is that this program is rife with fraud, partly because sympathetic bureaucrats refuse to enforce the qualification rules but just hand out stuff like candy.
Trump is welcome to check eligibility
But cutting off people's heat because of suspicion is unwarranted
Why can't the county step in and help? How about the state? Usually, locally *funded* programs are much better administered because the money is much closer to home and so there's a natural incentive to be more careful about using it.
The point is that federal programs are typically rife with fraud and huge admin costs. Just because the federal government does not perform a function does not mean that the function does not get done.
You’re missing the point.
The point is that the feds are shifting this TAX burden to the states to pay for their tax cuts to the wealthy. States now have to pay for this benefit out of their own budgets, which means they’ll have to increase YOUR taxes to pay for this. And you can’t even deduct the increase in taxes.
This is how governments pay for tax cuts to the wealthy. They give you a tax break and then cut transfers to states or municipalities, who then raise taxes to pay for them.
Trump brags about reducing spending and taxes, but transferring these costs to the states is really just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.