WASHINGTON – President Bush’s 2007 budget, which is being unveiled today, proposes spending more than $2.7 trillion, showering big increases on defense and homeland security and a smattering of other favored programs such as scientific research, education and energy.
At the same time, Bush’s blueprint being submitted to Congress proposes shrinking or eliminating 141 programs while achieving $36 billion in Medicare savings over the next five years.
The plan for the budget year that begins Oct. 1 lays out a path to achieving two of the president’s chief domestic goals: making permanent his first-term tax cuts, which will expire after 2010, and cutting the deficit in half by 2009, the year Bush will leave office.
Details about the plan come from public statements, such as Bush’s State of the Union address last week, and interviews with officials familiar with the budget proposal who spoke on condition of anonymity because they did not want pre-empt the president’s announcement today.
The deficit factor
The budget proposal’s release comes only weeks before the national debt will hit the current limit of $8.18 trillion, requiring Congress to vote for an increase to keep the government operating.
The administration has said the deficit for this year will top $400 billion, compared with last year’s $319 billion. The costs of fighting in Iraq and rebuilding the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast have pushed government spending higher than anticipated.
The administration said last week that it would submit a supplemental spending request for an additional $18 billion for hurricane relief for the current budget year, bringing total spending in response to the storms to more than $100 billion.
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.
Budget losers
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.
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 in January, 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 – less than half the amount sought by the administration. Medicaid is a joint state-federal program that provides health care for the poor.
Budget winners
Bush’s budget does contain some winners outside of defense. 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 the air passenger security fee from the current $2.50 per flight to $5, a proposal Congress rejected last year.
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.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
