The fact that in the United States we are even talking about the possibility of people freezing to death in their homes shows how out of kilter things have become. But that is a real possibility this winter given large proposed cuts in the federal Low Income Home Energy Assistance (LIHEAP) program, high oil prices, tight state budgets and increasing poverty.

An estimated 5.4 million households this winter can be expected to apply for heating assistance because they meet its low-income requirements. That fact alone is troubling. It indicates how bad the economy is that so many Americans cannot afford to heat their homes without a handout, either because they are unemployed or the jobs they hold do not pay enough to live on.

This winter, there may be enough money to meet the needs of half of the applicants, or half their needs. President Obama has proposed cutting LIHEAP from $5.1 billion to $2.6 billion. Many Republicans in Congress want deeper cuts and some seek elimination of the program.

In Connecticut, which expects to get $46.4 million, the administration of Gov. Dannel P. Malloy has proposed limiting help to people who use oil, propane, wood or coal to heat their homes. The logic is that utilities, by law, cannot shut off the natural gas or electricity to homes between Nov. 1 and May 1, so those folks will get no help.

That's what passes for public policy in these desperate times. Rather than tossing citizens a temporary lifeline to get through the winter, this policy will assure that they get so deeply in debt they may never dig out. Meanwhile, the utilities will seek to recover the cost of all those unpaid winter bills in rate increases, further burdening a middle-class that in many instances will also struggle to pay the heating bills.

Of course, the government has no trouble paying the bill for energy when it's a priority, such as feeding the petro needs of far-off wars or supplying massive amounts of energy to military bases across the world, some of dubious security value decades after the end of the Cold War.

In a 2007 report Sohbet Karbuz, former head of the energy statistics section of the International Energy Agency, calculated that the Defense Energy Support Center spent $13 billion in one year on energy to supply the Department of Defense, or five times what the president feels the government can afford to warm its own citizens in desperate need of help.

Something is very wrong.