New budget plan squeezes education, Medicare

Money for drilling?
Bush’s budget also projects receiving $4 billion over the next five years for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, something Congress has repeatedly refused to allow.

The biggest spending increase would go to the military, a 6.9 percent rise to $439.3 billion for 2007, a figure that does not include the costs of fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The administration said last week it will ask Congress for an additional $120 billion to cover fighting for the rest of this year and the early part of 2007 while seeking $18 billion more in hurricane relief this year.

While the Department of Homeland Security would also see an increase for 2007, nine of the 15 Cabinet agencies would see outright cuts in their discretionary spending for next year with the biggest percentage reductions occurring in the departments of Transportation, Justice and Agriculture.

$14.5 billion reduction in 141 programs
Bush is proposing to continue a serious squeeze on the one-sixth of the budget outside of defense and homeland security that is subject to annual appropriations. This year he would cut spending in this area by 0.5 percent.

To achieve this goal, Bush is seeking savings of $14.5 billion by eliminating and drastically scaling back 141 government programs. Last year, he targeted 154 such programs and won two-fifths of the spending cuts he requested, amounting to $6.5 billion in savings.

Even programs not targeted for elimination are subject to tight budgets, including previously favored agencies such as the National Institutes of Health, which would see its spending essentially frozen at this year’s level.

Robert Eckel, president of the American Heart Association, said that it was a disappointment for the 71 million Americans who suffer from heart disease, stroke and other cardiovascular disease that Bush’s budget has placed funding for programs “that help prevent, treat and cure these diseases on the back burner of his domestic agenda.”

Medicare cuts controversial
Bush’s proposed Medicare reductions are expected to draw determined opposition in Congress, which just approved a package of $39 billion in cuts in benefit programs over five years, including $6.4 billion in reductions in the growth of Medicare and $4.7 billion in cuts in the growth of Medicaid, the joint state-federal program that provides health care to the poor.

The spending plan does contain some winners in the domestic arena.

Set for higher spending, as highlighted in Bush’s State of the Union address, are programs to address soaring energy costs through development of alternative fuels, rising medical bills through expanded health savings accounts and global competition through a new “American Competitiveness Initiative.”

That initiative 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.

Instead of pushing last year’s Social Security overhaul proposal, the president is calling for creation of a bipartisan commission to study ways to deal with soaring spending for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. However, his budget does include a projection that creation of private investment accounts for younger workers, the heart of his plan, would cost $712 billion over the next decade.

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