Have you considered that, maybe, the US is itself responsible for the damage to its reputation that is caused by the fact that this is a country that has tolerated and even stirred anti-black racism for so long, or the fact that it doesn’t care about poor families keeping warm in the winter? I’m not trying to be a dick. I know what you’re saying, maybe these countries too take pleasure in embarrassing the U.S. But it’s embarrassment that’s well-deserved, at least in my opinion. In February Congress passed a budget that cut several billion dollars from the US government’s own heating assistance program (LIHEAP). If Venezuela wants to call attention to this sad fact, then shame on the U.S.
How does providing heating assistance to low-income American families, or condemning anti-black racism “harm the US”? That’s the claim I was challenging.
sells the donated gas at discounted prices to the American populace
You are seriously confused. CITGO may “earn 32 billion a year from its gas sales”, but there’s no way it makes that kind of money from its heating oil philanthropy program! How much of CITGO’s 32 billion a year do you think comes from its providing millions of gallons of heating oil to low-income families, at 40-45 percent below the market price? The value of these discounts comes out to something like $100 million dollars a year. I’d be surprised if CITGO made any money at all from this program, especially since, beginning in 2006, it started sending 100 gallons of free oil to eligible households each year. Oh yeah, I almost forgot, how much of CITGO’s profit do you think comes from donating hundreds of thousands of gallons to hundreds of homeless shelters across the Northeast, for absolutely free?
My comment was made in response to someone’s claim that “Anything that harms the US is good for [Chavez].” Regardless of whether CITGO benefits financially somehow from this arrangement, the fact is that its heating oil assistance program does offer much-needed relief to poor American families. Especially in light of the 2012 budget–proposed by President Obama–which cuts several billion dollars from the government’s energy assistance fund for poor people–slashing the total funding currently authorized by Congress by more than half?
Anything that harms the US is good to him
I suppose that’s why Venezuela just renewed and expanded its home heating oil assistance program in the U.S. (through CITGO), which has helped hundreds of thousands of low-income Americans keep warm every winter for seven consecutive years.