Budget Study: White House Seeks Even More Cuts

[reprehensor]

Study: White House Seeks Even More Cuts

By MARY DALRYMPLE, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Spending restraints in President Bush's budget proposal would mean deep cuts to environmental protection, community development, veterans benefits and other programs through the end of the decade, a liberal think tank said Wednesday.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said its calculations, made using budget information provided to congressional committees, reveal future spending cuts that the White House wants but didn't detail in the 2006 budget it sent to lawmakers Monday.

"They did real budgeting, they just decided to hide it," said Richard Kogan, a budget analyst at the center. "I don't fault them for budgeting, I fault them for hiding it."

By proposing annual lids on government spending without giving program-by-program details of potential program cuts in 2007 through 2010, the report said, the White House sidestepped a debate on policy trade-offs.

more@link

[deek]

1. Check out the report at Center on Budget and Policy Priorities:

UNPUBLISHED ADMINISTRATION BUDGET DOCUMENTS SHOW DOMESTIC CUTS WOULD SIGNIFICANTLY REDUCE FUNDING FOR MOST PUBLIC SERVICES
By Sharon Parrott, Isaac Shapiro, David Kamin, and Ruth Carlitz

Overview

The Administration’s budget calls for $214 billion in reductions over five years in annually appropriated domestic programs outside homeland security, compared to current funding levels adjusted only for inflation. These programs, generally referred to as “discretionary” programs, encompass a broad array of public services such as education, environmental protection, transportation, veterans’ health care, medical research, law enforcement, and food and drug safety inspection.

One unusual aspect of this budget is the omission of information about how these cuts would affect particular programs. The budget fails to provide proposed funding levels for individual appropriated programs for years after 2006 — the first time since 1989 that an Administration’s budget has lacked this type of information. As a consequence, the published, widely available budget documents released by the Administration on February 7 provide programmatic details on how the Administration would achieve only the first $18 billion of these cuts, the reductions that would occur in 2006. Some $196 billion in domestic cuts — all of the reductions in years 2007 through 2010 — are left unidentified.

The omission of this information is significant because, under the budget, the cuts in domestic discretionary programs would grow much deeper over time. In 2006, the only year for which detail on its discretionary program reductions is provided, the budget would cut domestic discretionary programs outside of homeland security by 5 percent. By 2010, these cuts would reach 16 percent and thus be three times deeper. (emphasis mine)



more at http://www.cbpp.org/2-9-05bud.htm