liheap has republic health implications. when not funded adequately, we see these things the of a thing of concern, when liheap was funded at less than $2.5 billion, that is when you see people not having enough to pay their energy bill and use space heaters. you see more house fires could be for liheap became a program, it was much more common. host: people turning on the oven to generate heat. caller: yes. the good news, when liheap was funded at last year's level, we see better outcomes. success is not something people notice as much in the current environment. people tend to look for bad stories. we can have good success. the program has been working well. we're reaching close to 9 million households. host: this is the estimated home heating in 2012. heating oil will have a 4% increase in cost for americans. natural gas, expected to decline by 7%. electricity expected to seek a decline of 2%. propane, 1% decline. it is holding a rather steady. caller: it depends --guest: it depends on where you live. you think, over the

liheap is based on current energy prices. there was an assumption the number of families would decline because there was an expectation the economy might be improving faster. the $2.5 billion to recommend it would have been devastating for the program. i think the other question is, where does liheap fit into the social safety net? there are other programs equally important. i work for state energy directors. many of them also run other programs to help families as well. from our perspective, a cut in head start, which could creek sold in an increase in liheap, is not a good solution. -- which could result in an increase in liheap, is not a good solution. we want to help stabilize families. host: looking at senator snowe and her advocacy for boosting liheap's funding. can you tell us about who some of the other advocates of the liheap program are? are we talking about senators and representatives from cold weather states? is it as simple as that? guest: the strongest representatives are from the cold weather states. winter hi

you cannot have -- you get more revenue from federal government from royalties, less spending on liheapsidies, people are happier all the way around. that is what supply-side economics was originally all about in the 1970's. >> governor romney, you blamed president obama for the jobs crisis but when you look at that data and the positive trend line, he still gets only the blame and none of the credit. >> i do not blame him for the recession and the decline. i blame him for having it going on for so long and so we can having a recovery that is so tepid. businesses that would normally be hiring people are not hiring dream i asked them why and they say because they look at the policies of this administration and feel that they are under attack. when you have an administration raising taxes on business, when it puts in place obamacare they will raise the cost of health care for businesses, when a stack and national labor relations board, which made the policies of labor will change dramatically in the direction they find uncomfortable, when you have obamacare placing more mandates on them,

when we were at a debate the other day and we were asked a question about liheap, the heating assistance so you can help people or cut more people off and hurt them so you can shrink the deficit. nobody on the panel answering the question seemed to consider an alternative. what if we simply went out and developed american oil and gas, brought down the cost of heating oil, and didn't need to help people, because the price came down? that idea of doing more and doing it better does not exist in the washington lexicon. and it makes it very hard for our friends, the news media, to cover, because it's so strange. what if you just were innovative? what if you just had new approaches? what if you just did everything americans have always done? the fact is, the entrepreneurial free enterprise system, which attracted people from benjamin franklin to the wright brothers to henry ford, to thomas edison, to bill gates, to steve jobs, that model of maximizing the development of newç approaches new energy, new opportunities, new technology has raised the standard of living of people across this plane