[EarthTech]

By LARRY MARGASAK, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - President Bush (news - web sites)'s budget plan would reduce spending for community police, water projects and other programs popular with lawmakers as well as broad programs ranging from environmental protection to agriculture.


AP Photo



Sixty-five government programs, 38 of them education-related, would be eliminated for a saving of $4.9 billion. Spending cuts would be sought in 63 others in the budget plan unveiled Monday.


"In some cases we say mission accomplished, in some cases it is duplicative of other programs we have in place, especially when we have new and better programs, and in some cases ... the program is not showing the results," said the White House budget director, Joshua Bolten.


Since taking office, Bush has tried to cut the Clinton-era program to put 100,000 police officers on the streets, saying it did not conclusively reduce crime. Congress keeps rejecting the reduction.


Now, the administration has an additional argument, contending the Community Oriented Policing Services program has met its goal with 118,500 officers hired. The budget plan would cut the program from $481.9 million to $97 million, with the remaining money going for training and other law enforcement programs.


The plan to cut U.S. Corps of Engineers water project construction, from $1.7 billion to $1.4 billion, is politically sensitive, too. Lawmakers use the projects to demonstrate their clout in Washington.


The Environmental Protection Agency (news - web sites)'s 8.9 percent decrease overall included a $492 million reduction in low-interest loans to states and communities for clean water pollution control projects. Funding would drop from $1.3 billion to $850 million.


Another $335 million cut would come from allocations to local governments, to improve wastewater, storm water and drinking water facilities. Last year's budget provided $429 million.


The reduction in the clean water loan program would hurt much-needed efforts to replace aging facilities, said Adam Krantz, a spokesman for the Association of Metropolitan Sewerage Agencies, which represents publicly owned sewage treatment plants.


"It's precisely the wrong message, when states and communities are facing budget crunches and heightened security needs, to propose these kinds of cuts," he said.


The Agriculture Department's budget would reduce rural development programs from $2.45 billion to $2.21 billion, while conservation funds would drop from $1.03 billion to $908 million.


For the Energy Department, the administration proposes spending $502 million — 22 percent less than last year — for research into the long-term health and environmental consequences of energy use and development. That includes programs for global climate change; air, land and marine environments; and biological effects of radiation.


The administration's ambitious plans to return Americans to the moon as early as 2015, and eventually send a mission to Mars, would cut space agency spending for earth science, aeronautics and education.


The Education Department would realize a $1.4 billion saving from elimination of 38 programs, including those focused on alcohol abuse, the arts, dropout prevention, school counselors, smaller learning communities, school reform, and school leadership.


Other proposed reductions:


_The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, $3.69 billion to $3.38 billion.


_The U.S. Geological Survey (news - web sites), $938 million to $920 million.





_A decrease in spending for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (news - web sites) of $408 million, or 8.9 percent.

[EarthTech]

The man will not get my vote. I believe Al Sharpton as said more about improving this country domestically than any other. I like Bush and he has done a good job, BUT the country is falling apart economically. The internal infastructure is falling apart including our roads. We have tens of millions of Americans with no health insurance at all. Our water supplies are becoming polluted including private wells. Our lakes are becoming filled with silt and reducing capacity.( They need to be dredged ). This man wants to cut money domestically to pay for Iraq and his spending spree. The children of many families go tobed hungry every night, but yet let us send money to feed the rest of the world. When the country finally reaches the state of disrepair and desolation it is heading for what will we do?? I am not for isolation of America, but wake up people we must take care of our selves in order to save the rest.

[EarthTech]

Would you swim in your local Lake???

[EarthTech]

Sorry people but this has hit a nerve beyond all i see.

[eggplant43]

Originally posted by EarthTech:
The man will not get my vote. I believe Al Sharpton as said more about improving this country domestically than any other. I like Bush and he has done a good job, BUT the country is falling apart economically. The internal infastructure is falling apart including our roads. We have tens of millions of Americans with no health insurance at all. Our water supplies are becoming polluted including private wells. Our lakes are becoming filled with silt and reducing capacity.( They need to be dredged ). This man wants to cut money domestically to pay for Iraq and his spending spree. The children of many families go tobed hungry every night, but yet let us send money to feed the rest of the world. When the country finally reaches the state of disrepair and desolation it is heading for what will we do?? I am not for isolation of America, but wake up people we must take care of our selves in order to save the rest.

The obscenity of cutting taxes, while increasing spending in war, is, I believe at the root of this problem. I blame the Congress as much as I blame Bush.

[flyeater]

Al Sharpton as said more about improving this country domestically than any other

Please. The guys a joke. All he wants is the limelight and he doesn't care who he has to step on to get there. The Tawana Brawley case finally showed him in his true colors. He's completely unelectable for a reason.

[eggplant43]

Originally posted by flyeater:
Please. The guys a joke. All he wants is the limelight and he doesn't care who he has to step on to get there. The Tawana Brawley case finally showed him in his true colors. He's completely unelectable for a reason.

But oh, so entertaining.

[eggplant43]

February 03, 2004 -- 02:10 AM EDT)
A nice little detail about the quality of the numbers in the new budget.

This from Knight Ridder ...

Noticeably absent from next year's [budget] request is money for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. White House budget director Joshua Bolten estimated that another $50 billion would be needed to cover those costs next year. The White House expects to cover the war costs with supplemental funds after next fall's elections.
And why isn't that fifty billion included in the deficit number?


-- Josh Marshall

Copyright 2004 Joshua Micah Marshall

This document is available online at http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/arc...01.html#002520

[EdGreene]

Originally posted by flyeater:
Please. The guys a joke. All he wants is the limelight and he doesn't care who he has to step on to get there. The Tawana Brawley case finally showed him in his true colors. He's completely unelectable for a reason.

"Joke" or not, what truths he speaks stand on their own.

[eggplant43]

washingtonpost.com

Bush Reaches Back to His Conservative Base


By Jonathan Weisman

Washington Post Staff Writer

Tuesday, February 3, 2004; Page A04


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.

Pressing his claim to fiscal conservatism, Bush has embraced spending proposals that quickly enraged liberals but may also frighten moderate swing voters this fall, budget analysts said.

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.

"With Congress's help in enacting the budget we transmit today, we will be well on the path to cutting the deficit in half within five years," White House budget director Joshua B. Bolten said.

For months, the White House has faced stiff criticism from conservatives, who have accused Bush of abandoning Republican principles of fiscal restraint. Since the president came to office, spending at the annual discretion of Congress has risen at a historic clip of more than 27 percent. With the new Medicare prescription drug law, which Bush supported, he can claim the largest expansion of entitlement spending in that program's history.

With yesterday's budget unveiling, Bush showed he has heard the clamor on his right, lawmakers and budget analysts from both parties said.

"Many conservatives believe [the 2005 budget] reflects a growing awareness within the administration that we need to return to our historic commitment to fiscal discipline," said Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), who is among the conservatives pushing for more spending control.

Federal budget analyst Stan Collender, a managing director of Financial Dynamics, agreed. He said Bush keenly remembers the lesson of the 1992 reelection campaign of his father, President George H.W. Bush, when angry conservatives backed challenger Patrick Buchanan in the primaries and than stayed home in droves when Democrat Bill Clinton won the general election. The Republican conservative base did not mobilize again in 1996, when it perceived the GOP nominee, Robert J. Dole, as a Washington accommodator.

Indeed, political tacticians have long argued whether national elections are won by candidates who mobilize their core voters or who win over swing voters in the middle. The president appears to have decided, Collender said.

"This is a heavy play to the Republican base," he said. "He almost didn't have a choice, with the deficit so high and them so angry. The one thing he needs most is to make sure those people come out and vote."

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.

In all, Bolten said, the budget would kill 65 federal programs and significantly trim 63 others. That would save $4.9 billion in the next fiscal year, which starts Oct. 1.

"He's in so much trouble with the conservative base, he's trying to get that back," Scott Lilly, Democratic staff director of the House Appropriations Committee, said of Bush. "But everything he does destroys any credibility he might have had in terms of being compassionate or moderate. This is a blatantly radical budget."

Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) said many of the targeted programs have experienced huge spending increases in the past several years, so holding at current levels would be propping up a bloated federal government. Voters have seen state governments make serious cuts in popular programs, such as education, to balance their budgets, said Flake, another spending hawk. They are sure to understand it is the federal government's turn, he said.

"I think he picks up far more votes than he loses," Flake said.

Not all Republicans agree. House Appropriations Committee Chairman C.W. Bill Young (R-Fla.) blanched at the notion that the responsibility for deficit reduction would fall solely on his committee, when spending under the panel's jurisdiction totals one-third of the overall budget.

Since Bush plans hefty increases for military and homeland security spending, he has effectively confined deficit reduction to domestic programs that make up 17 percent of federal spending. Even if that spending were frozen, Young said, savings would be "marginal."

"While I am dedicated to developing fiscally conservative budgets, no one should expect significant deficit reduction as a result of austere non-defense discretionary spending limits," Young said. "The numbers simply do not add up."

Democratic presidential contenders made it clear yesterday that they will use the budget against Bush. Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.) declared, "The new Bush budget is more of the same: record deficits, tax cuts for the wealthy and special interests, and cuts in areas that matter to families."

Retired Army Gen. Wesley K. Clark pronounced himself "shocked," saying, "Today's budget proposal makes it clear what President Bush's priorities are: tax cuts for the rich and tough luck for everyone else."

If Bush is perceived as playing to his fiscal conservative base, some Democratic strategists say, they can make their attacks sink in with the moderate middle class, which is struggling financially in an uncertain economy. Voters on Nov. 2 will determine which strategy was the more savvy.



© 2004 The Washington Post Company

[Wino]

Received this link in an email today - warning, it's a request to join, but the video makes sense to me. I know nothing of the organization, so don't shoot the messenger!

http://action.truemajority.org/ctt.asp?u=265684&l=284

[ComputerFix]

Egg,

Remember our conversations about budgeting awhile back? I warned that while cutting seems appropriate, when actually done, disfavorable feedback would be the result. ET simply got the ball rolling.

While I can understand the distain for seeing such cuts and knowing that "war money" will be requested after the fact, even if it weren't, do you really think that folks like ET (and he/she is certainly not alone) will somehow be "ok" with reductions in spending such as those listed?

Rep Flake (from my state ) has on rose colored glasses. We understand the dollar crunch at a local level, but at a national one we simply expect the money to be there, print some up or something ( ).

Though in my earlier posts I used the example of Veterans Affairs (Would you vote for the guy who took money away from VA?) Bush has now set himself up as "Vote for me, I took money away from C.O.P.S". It matters not if the program still needed all the money, since we are not crime free, reducing money for officers is automatically bad.

BTW, will someone PLEASE quantify this kind of crap "...much of it [tax cuts] aimed at the wealthy, critics say."

I have personally reviewed the tax tables for a single person (since I did my taxes) and I am not wealthy, in fact, I nearly qualified for "special money" (missed by about $600) and yet, my tax bracket was at a smaller percentage, and since it is tiered, the expansion of the lower bracket allowed for more income to be at the lower percentage than the second tier, a higher percentage. Though I don't go further than that, I did see that the entire table was effectively "shifted down" and tax percentages lowered. This means that 100% of the taxpayers had their tax liability reduced. So someone fess up to the "only the rich" bit. If I am wrong, show it!

[eggplant43]

Thanks, I love Oreos

[Wino]

Originally posted by eggplant43:
Thanks, I love Oreos

Me, too. I thought even the neocons could understand this one, since they all seem to be low on blood sugar levels.

Also, thought bassetman had been moonlighting when the 'toon first started!

[flyeater]

This means that 100% of the taxpayers had their tax liability reduced.

It's true I got a piece of the pie. A dollar thirty-five a week piece. Woohoo!
How can Bush cut the deficit in half in five years when he won't have the money coming in to do it? The dividend taxes during the stock market bubble enabled us to bring the federal debt down dramatically but we won't have that tax base this go around.
Low inflation? Who the hell cares when my health care insurance doubles every couple of years and my mutual fund manager is ripping me off. Then to top it all off some corporations work the system so well they get tax credits and pay no taxes. Pfizer and Pepsico to name just two. Want to get really peeved? Enron claimed huge profits and when they got busted on it they sued to get their overpaid taxes back.
I see Rush likes to use statistics to show who really pays taxes.. While on the face it's true that 50% of Americans pay 96% of the taxes it's misleading if you don't factor in how much of the wealth they control.

Hmm, I see Rush is also bragging about an autographed speech he received from G. W. Bush. He must be "holding"