WASHINGTON - White House officials and Congress' top budget writers tried rallying support Tuesday for President Bush's $2.57-trillion budget, but cracks in Republican unity showed as lawmakers digested the plan's proposed spending cuts.
"Stay in the game the rest of the year," House Budget Committee Chairman Jim Nussle, R-Iowa, told colleagues who have voiced support for paring the deficit since the budget's release Monday. "Don't claim you want to cut the deficit in one breath and demand we spend more in the next."
Joshua Bolten, Bush's budget chief, told Nussle's committee that the president "won't hesitate" to veto spending bills - which he has yet to do in four years.
During a Tuesday trip to Detroit, the president prodded Congress to adopt what he called the most disciplined federal budget in more than 20 years. He warned lawmakers that sacrifices must be made to finance a wartime government.
"Protecting America imposes costs that are large and they are necessary," Bush said in a speech at the Detroit Economic Club. "That means we need to show even more discipline in other areas."
Bush's budget calls on Congress to essentially freeze nondefense discretionary spending in coming years to finance a more muscular defense program.
The budget proposes reducing health care programs, farm subsides and scores of other programs but produces only minimal, if any, deficit reduction next year.
Republicans across the Capitol flashed signs of concern about Bush's proposals, raising questions about how closely the GOP-led Congress will follow the president's fiscal outline. Bush has proposed increasing defense and domestic security spending while culling $137-billion in 10-year savings from Medicaid and other benefits, plus eliminating or deeply cutting more than 150 education and other programs.
Underscoring GOP fault lines, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Judd Gregg, R-N.H., opened Tuesday's Senate session by voicing support for Bush's plan. Gregg called Bush's plan "courageous" and said he was willing to lead a charge to find savings from benefits like farm subsidies and Medicaid, the federal-state health care program for the poor and disabled.
The next speaker, Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., asked lawmakers to take "a sound and sensible" approach to the president's proposals to reduce farm subsidies and cut planned weapons purchases.
Bush's budget targets include technology subsidies to business, beach replenishment, parkland purchases by states and foreign aid for child survival.
President's strategist Karl Rove promoted
WASHINGTON - Karl Rove, the senior political strategist who orchestrated President Bush's re-election campaign, has been promoted to deputy chief of staff, a job that will involve him in most White House policy and not just politics.
Rove will now coordinate White House policy developed within the Domestic Policy Council, the National Economic Council, the National Security Council and the Homeland Security Council, although intelligence and other national security issues from those councils will be handled by deputy chief of staff Joe Hagin.
Rove will retain his title as senior adviser and continue to oversee strategy to advance the president's agenda.
Information from the Washington Post and the Associated Press was used in this report.
