Tuesday, February 15, 2005
Is education, health and law enforcement really that important?
President Bush's budget plan calls for elimination or drastic reduction 68 federal programs that he has never targeted before, including vocational-education grants, emergency medical services for children and assistance to local law enforcement agencies, according to a list the White House released [Friday].
The 68 programs are among 154 the Bush administration singled out for termination or major reduction to help restrain spending in the $2.57 trillion budget for fiscal 2006 he sent to Congress on Monday. Many of the 154 were recycled from previous budgets that Congress rejected before and they are unlikely to be accepted this year either.
-clip-
The programs proposed for elimination include big-ticket items, such as $1.2 billion for vocational education, as well as smaller services, such as the National Youth Sports Program, an $18 million effort that has provided athletics for low-income children for more than three decades. Grants for the Safe and Drug-Free Schools program, totaling $437 million, "are spread too thinly to support quality interventions," the report said, and would be zeroed out.
The White House targeted a $41 million college scholarship program named for one of Bush's most persistent critics, Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.). But even the president's own past priorities were not sacrosanct -- $496 million in education technology grants created by Bush's No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 would be wiped out because, the report said, "it is not clear that [it] has been successful in accomplishing this mission."
-clip-
Health and Human Services programs would face significant cuts. The Bush plan would kill seven Health Resources and Services Administration programs that earmark money for emergency medical services for children, hospital construction, traumatic brain injury and newborn hearing screening. Despite the national rise in child obesity, the White House wants to eliminate a $59 million media campaign to encourage children ages 9 to 13 to be more physically active, judging it redundant given similar drives by Nickelodeon and the Disney Channel.
Bush also deemed unnecessary a $6 million 10-year-old program that helps timber workers in the Northwest earn a living as logging opportunities decline and a $10 million four-year-old program that helps rural communities buy fire engines.
Among the biggest programs that would be shuttered is the Byrne Justice Assistance Grants, a $626 million effort created last year to help state and local police fight violent and drug-related crime. The White House argued that it should be closed since crime is in decline and the program's importance pales in comparison with "increasing federal counterterrorism efforts and reducing the federal deficit."
And when was this list released? When do you think?
The White House released the list of program cuts in response to congressional requests, sending it to lawmakers late on a Friday afternoon, when it would receive relatively little attention heading into the weekend.
posted by chris at 2:13 PM
------------------
|
