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Politics

Budget plan takes some big swipes

By Times Wires
Published February 2, 2008

Dozens of popular health, housing and education programs would be eliminated or sharply reduced under the 2009 budget that President Bush will announce on Monday. Here is a look at some of its elements.

Deficits: The plan will claim deficits in the $400-billion range for this year and next. For the 2009 budget year covered by the Bush plan, deficits are likely to rise higher than Bush predicts after additional war costs are added in. Bush says he foresees a budget surplus in 2012, but the steps required to do that - and keep his promise to extend tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003 beyond their expiration at the end of 2010 - are hardly realistic. For example, his budget contains no war costs beyond 2009 and fails to address the huge cost of keeping more and more taxpayers from feeling the bite of the alternative minimum tax.

Domestic appropriations: These would be essentially frozen at current levels, with most services being cut after inflation and population growth are factored in.

Defense: The Pentagon would get a $35-billion increase to $515-billion for core programs, about 7 percent, with war costs additional. Another $21-billion would go to the Energy Department for nuclear weapons programs. A $70-billion "bridge fund" for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would give the next president time to consider options, with tens of billions of dollars more needed regardless of any strategy shift.

Education: Education programs would be frozen at $60-billion, with no increase to keep pace with inflation. Bush is pushing to restore $600-million lawmakers cut from Reading First, which serves low-income children. Title I grants, the main source of federal funding for poor students, would rise about 3 percent. Special education would receive $11.3-billion, a $330-million increase. Head Start would receive a 2 percent increase to $7-billion. Abstinence education programs popular with social conservatives would get a 25 percent increase to $137-million. The White House wants to eliminate spending for more than a dozen education programs, including Even Start, which promotes family literacy; grants to the states for classroom technology; Supplemental Education Opportunity Grants, for needy undergraduates, and a scholarship program named for the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Robert Byrd, D-W.Va. The administration also is renewing a push for a $300-million proposal that would allow poor students to transfer to better public schools outside their district or to private schools, if their schools fail to meet benchmarks.

Medicare and Medicaid: The programs will see almost $200-billion in cuts over the next five years, about three times the savings proposed last year but rejected by Congress. Much of the savings would come from freezing reimbursement rates for most health care providers for three years and from cutting payments to hospitals serving large numbers of the uninsured poor.

Health: Health and Human Services Department funding would be cut by $2-billion, amounting to a 3 percent reduction. Funding for the National Institutes of Health would be frozen. The budget would end special programs to care for people with Alzheimer's disease and to treat people with traumatic brain injury. The Centers for Disease Control's budget would face a 7 percent reduction of $433-million. But Bush would significantly increase spending on the State Children's Health Insurance Program, the focus of a huge fight with Congress last year. Bush will request $19.7-billion in additional federal allotments to the states for coverage of children from low-income families in the next five years, said Michael Leavitt, secretary of health and human services. The new proposal is midway between the $5-billion increase requested by Bush last year and the $35-billion increase that Congress provided in bills vetoed by Bush in October and December. Rural health programs, a favorite of many senators, would be reduced 87 percent, to $16.9-million. Responding to a bipartisan clamor for new measures to ensure the safety of food and drugs, the Food and Drug Administration would get a 6 percent boost to $2.4-billion to ramp up food and drug safety efforts.

Homeland security: Overall, the budget for homeland security programs will increase by almost 11 percent, with a 19 percent increase for border security and immigration enforcement efforts, including new money to secure the border with Mexico.

[Last modified February 2, 2008, 01:32:30]