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Proposed '06 budget is Bush's toughest yet

WASHINGTON - President Bush's budget will propose slashing grants to local law enforcement agencies and cutting spending for environmental protection, American Indian schools and home-heating aid for the poor, the Associated Press reported Saturday without identifying its sources.

Bush molded the roughly $2.5-trillion spending plan for 2006 as a response to a string of record federal deficits and sends it to Congress Monday.

The budget, the toughest he has written since entering the White House four years ago, seeks about half the increase for school districts in low-income communities he requested last year and a slight reduction for the National Park Service.

Bush has said his budget will assemble federal resources for war, domestic security and other priorities, and cull inefficient or redundant programs. Administration officials have said he will hold overall nondefense spending, excepting domestic security, to less than next year's expected 2.3 percent increase in inflation, meaning the programs will lose purchasing power.

According to figures obtained by the AP, Bush would slice a $600-million grant program for local police agencies to $60-million next year. Grants to local firefighters, for which Congress provided $715-million this year, would fall to $500-million.

He would eliminate the $300-million the government gives to states for incarcerating illegal aliens who commit crimes. It's a proposal he has made in the past and one that Congress has ignored. Also gone would be assistance for police departments to improve technology and their ability to communicate with other agencies.

The Environmental Protection Agency's $8.1-billion would drop by $450-million, or about 6 percent, with most of the reductions coming in water programs and projects won by lawmakers for their home districts.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs would be sliced by $100-million to $2.2-billion. The reduction would come almost entirely from the agency's effort to build more schools.

The $2.2-billion program that provides low-income people - in large part the elderly - with home-heating aid would be cut to $2-billion. The park service's budget would drop nearly 3 percent to $2.2-billion, largely due to a reduction in its construction account.

Several cultural agencies will get about the same as this year's levels, including the Smithsonian Institution and the national endowments for the arts and humanities, which distribute money to local groups.

Even on the plus side, Bush's budget will show constraint compared with previous years.

Bush will seek about 5 percent more, or about $600-million, for the $12.8-billion program for low-income area school districts. Last year, he requested a $1-billion increase.

Defense Department documents obtained Friday show the Pentagon's budget would grow by 4.8 percent to $419.3-billion, $3.4-billion less than he planned to seek for 2006 a year ago.

Other areas fare better.

The Coast Guard, now part of the Homeland Security Department, will get $8.1-billion, $600-million over this year. Included will be a healthy increase for its plans to buy more oceangoing vessels.

Community health centers would grow to over $2-billion, an increase of $304-million, or almost 18 percent, over this year. Bush said he wants every poor county to have one of the centers, which are used heavily by the poor.

[Last modified February 6, 2005, 00:23:11]