Bush budget cuts widely opposed

Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Among a laundry list of possible budget cuts, President Bush will propose abolishing funding for more than two dozen health, labor and education programs in Washington state so he can make up a deficit in the popular Pell Grant program for college students.

In anticipation, Democrats assembled a list of projects they believe are in jeopardy, including almost $17 million for the state. However, a spokesman for the U.S. House Appropriations Committee said Bush’s proposed cuts are "dead on arrival."

When Bush submits his 2003 budget to Congress on Monday, he will ask lawmakers to eliminate small state projects from a menu of more than 1,600 possibilities nationwide. Congress agreed to finance them in a $123 billion spending bill passed overwhelmingly in December.

Sponsored by lawmakers of both parties, the programs are worth $905.8 million, according to congressional figures.

The potential cuts are among $2.1 billion worth of programs Bush wouldn’t mind slashing to pay for a deficit in the 30-year-old Pell Grant program for low-income college students. He will ask Congress to choose enough cuts to save $1.3 billion.

In Washington state, the 25 programs on the Democrats’ watch list include money approved for at-risk youths, a Seattle blood center, technology training, a theater program, aid for the blind and retraining for unemployed Boeing workers, among others.

Critics consider the spending pork, and Bush has been trying unsuccessfully to eliminate many of the projects. This time, he will again face opposition in Congress.

A dozen of the 25 programs for Washington state were secured by Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash, a member of the Senate labor, health and education spending subcommittee.

Murray said those programs aren’t obscure uses for spare money, but important state programs, particularly now as the state faces a $1.25 billion budget shortfall.

"Clearly, we are not going to allow the president to cut these important programs," Murray said Friday.

John Scofield, a GOP spokesman for the House Appropriations Committee, said the shortfall in the Pell Grant program is still just an estimate and, if it becomes a reality, can be remedied in other ways. The 1,600-plus programs are safe, he said.

"This proposal is dead on arrival. We are not going to do it," Scofield said. "Those local communities will get the funds."

Rep. Jennifer Dunn, R-Wash., made phone calls to the administration Friday to make sure that the Renton Worksource Center in King County will get the $800,000 she sponsored to retrain Boeing’s laid-off workers.

She said reports that the money is on the chopping block are "nonsense" and driven by people with political motives.

"Worksource is a terrific center of retraining," Dunn said. "This is just the beginning of those dollars."

Eighty-five percent of Pell recipients come from families with incomes below $30,000. The grant often pays a large share of a student’s college expenses, but its purchasing power has dropped steadily over three decades.

Murray said that demand for the grants obviously goes up when the economy is in trouble, and in the past, Congress has passed supplemental spending bills to cover deficits, rather than gutting other programs.

"I am unclear as to why the president has decided we are not going to do it that way and we are going to take dollars away — pit students against students," she said.

Copyright ©2002 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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