Tuesday, February 03, 2004
Bush's budget
President Bush has drafted an election-year budget that shows considerably more political concern for his conservative base, which is upset over the government's steady growth, than for any need to assuage moderate voters in November.
The proposed cuts, in dollar terms, will have little impact on the budget deficit, which the White House put at $521 billion this year. But the names of several programs on the chopping block -- housing assistance for the elderly, vocational education, lead-hazard reduction, local law enforcement grants -- allow the president to argue that he has put forth a tough-minded spending plan for 2005.
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But that decision is risky. The budget calls for $1.24 trillion in additional tax cuts over the next decade, much of it aimed at the wealthy, critics say. Fiscal discipline, they say, is expected on only one side of the ledger.
Meanwhile, the programs Bush seeks to eliminate will follow him on the campaign trail. Under his budget, the $247 million Even Start family literacy program would be eliminated. The Eisenhower regional math and science consortiums and the Eisenhower National Clearinghouse for Math and Science Education would be killed. HOPE VI, a $149 million program to revitalize blighted housing projects, would go.
Also gone: dropout-prevention efforts, elementary and secondary school counseling assistance, aid to migrant and seasonal farmworkers, the Smaller Learning Communities initiative, and a bevy of local law enforcement assistance programs.
Even as the economy fails to generate significant job growth, Bush would slice federal vocational and adult education funding by 35 percent, from $2.1 billion to $1.4 billion. Assistance for workers dislocated by the North American Free Trade Agreement would be eliminated. Rural development assistance would be cut, as would housing aid for Native Americans and the elderly. The foreign aid budget would dramatically boost funding to combat the spread of AIDS, but it would also slice $404 million from child-survival and child-disease programs.
There goes the whole "compassionate conservative" thing. The Center for American Progress has
much, much more.
UPDATE: Other budgetary issues: ANWR, the environment and defense. Ugh.
posted by chris at 12:12 PM
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