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Bush budget favoring defense, security
(AP)
Updated: 2006-02-06 09:43 The administration also will seek an additional $120 billion to help pay for
the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan this year and the early part of 2007. That
increase is on top of a nearly 5 percent rise in Pentagon spending to $439.3
billion in Bush's budget.
The Homeland Security Department is in line for about a 5 percent increase in
its current operating budget, not counting the costs of hurricane relief. To
offset these costs, the White House is seeking to double a passenger security
fee from the current $2.50 per flight to $5, a proposal Congress rejected last
year.
To achieve the goal of halving the deficit by 2009, the administration again
wants to put a squeeze on the one-sixth of the budget that funds the nonsecurity
operations of government — everything from running the national parks to
prosecuting criminals.
In this area, the Bush budget calls for the elimination or reduction of more
than 140 programs at a savings of $14 billion. These programs, Bush said in his
State of the Union address, "are performing poorly or not fulfilling essential
priorities."
In last year's budget, Bush sought to curb 154 such programs for savings of
$15.8 billion; Congress agreed to about two-fifths of those cuts.
One proposal would eliminate the $107 million Commodity Supplemental Food
Program, which provides food to low-income mothers with young children and for
the elderly poor.
Defenders of this program and others at risk are certain to fight
aggressively.
Even programs not targeted for elimination are subject to tight budgets. That
includes such previously favored agencies as the National Institutes of Health.
Bush is proposing to save $36 billion over the next five years by trimming
growth in Medicare, the government's medical insurance program that covers 41
million older people and the disabled.
The spending reductions would not affect the new prescription drug program
that just started last month, but the White House wants to trim $20 billion over
the next five years in payments to hospitals and other institutions such as
skilled-nursing facilities.
The Medicare reductions are expected to draw determined opposition in
Congress, which just approved a reduction of $4.7 billion in spending for
Medicaid; that was less than half the amount sought by the administration.
Medicaid is a joint state-federal program that provides health care for the
poor.
Bush's budget does contain some winners outside of defense and homeland
security. Set for higher spending, as highlighted in the State of the Union
address, are programs to address soaring energy costs, rising medical bills and
increased global competition from countries such as China and India.
Bush is promoting his "American Competitiveness Initiative," which would
extend an expired business tax break for research and development, double the
government's commitment to basic scientific research and train thousands of new
science and math teachers.
For health care, Bush wants to expand current health care savings accounts
that provide tax advantages for the uninsured to buy health coverage.
His energy initiative seeks, by 2025, to replace three-fourths of the oil the
United States now imports from the Middle East, partly by boosting ethanol
production.
Missing from this year's budget is the president's big proposal from last
year to overhaul Social Security by creating private accounts. The idea went
nowhere in Congress.
Instead, the president this year is calling for creation of a bipartisan
commission to study ways to deal with the exploding costs of Social Security,
Medicare and Medicaid.
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