Bush Budget Calls for Law Enforcement Cuts

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Bush Budget Calls for Law Enforcement Cuts

Feb 05, 10:19 PM EST

 

WASHINGTON - President Bush's budget will propose slashing grants to local law

enforcement agencies and cutting spending for environmental protection, American

Indian schools and home-heating aid for the poor, The Associated Press learned

Saturday.

 

Bush molded the roughly $2.5 trillion spending plan for 2006 as a response to a

string of record federal deficits, and is sends it to Congress on Monday.

 

The budget, the toughest he has written since entering the White House four

years ago, seeks about half the increase for school districts in low-income

communities he requested last year and a slight reduction for the National Park

Service.

 

Many proposals face an unclear fate in Congress, where members of both parties

are sure to defend favorite initiatives. Democrats blame the cuts on the tax

reductions Bush has enacted and say that other items his budget omits - a Social

Security overhaul and costs for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan - will only make

matters worse.

 

" What it will lead to is growing pressure for draconian cuts, " Sen. Kent Conrad

of North Dakota, the Senate Budget Committee's top Democrat, said Saturday.

" It's inescapable, the course he's led us on, whether it's this year or next

year, is for very, very heavy cuts. "

 

Bush has said his budget will assemble federal resources for war, domestic

security and other priorities and cull inefficient or redundant programs.

Administration officials have said he will hold overall nondefense spending -

excepting domestic security - to less than next year's expected 2.3 percent

increase in inflation, meaning the programs will lose purchasing power.

 

" I stand with the president that we need to eliminate wasteful spending and we

need to look through all the programs, " said House Budget Committee Chairman Jim

Nussle, R-Iowa. " There's no question that's not the easiest thing to do in

Washington. "

 

The details obtained Saturday are the latest in a budget that will also seek

savings from programs ranging from Amtrak and farmers' subsidies to Medicaid,

the federal-state health program for the poor and disabled.

 

According to figures obtained by the AP, Bush would slice a $600 million grant

program for local police agencies to $60 million next year. Grants to local

firefighters, for which Congress provided $715 million this year, would fall to

$500 million.

 

He would eliminate the $300 million the government gives to states for

incarcerating illegal aliens who commit crimes. It's a proposal he has made in

the past and one that Congress has ignored. Also gone would be assistance for

police departments to improve technology and their ability to communicate with

other agencies.

 

The Environmental Protection Agency's $8.1 billion would drop by $450 million,

or about 6 percent, with most of the reductions coming in water programs and

projects won by lawmakers for their home districts.

 

The Bureau of Indians Affairs would be sliced by $100 million to $2.2 billion.

The reduction would come almost entirely from the agency's effort to build more

schools.

 

The $2.2 billion program that provides low-income people - in large part the

elderly - with home-heating aid would be cut to $2 billion. Sen. Charles

Schumer, D-N.Y., said the reduction would be " wrong-headed an inappropriate, "

especially with this season's jump in oil prices. White House budget office

spokesman Chad Kolton said Bush has added hundreds of millions of dollars to the

program since taking office and said his budget will provide " adequate resources

to make sure we can assist low-income Americans. "

 

The park service's budget would drop nearly 3 percent to $2.2 billion, largely

due to a reduction in its construction account.

 

Several cultural agencies will get about the same as this year's levels,

including the Smithsonian Institution and the national endowments for the arts

and humanities, which distribute money to local groups.

 

Even on the plus side, Bush's budget will show constraint compared with previous

years. That in part reflects his pledge to cut last year's projected $521

billion in half by 2009. One lawmaker said the budget will estimate that year's

shortfall at about $230 billion - well under the record $427 billion it will

project for 2005.

 

Bush will seek about 5 percent more, or about $600 million, for the $12.8

billion program for low-income area school districts. Last year, he requested a

$1 billion increase.

 

Defense Department documents obtained Friday show the Pentagon's budget would

grow by 4.8 percent to $419.3 billion - $3.4 billion less than he planned to

seek for 2006 a year ago.

 

Other areas would fare better.

 

The Coast Guard - now part of the Homeland Security Department - will get $8.1

billion, $600 million over this year. Included will be a healthy increase for

its plans to buy more oceangoing vessels, a boon to the new chairman of the

Senate Appropriations Committee, Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., in whose state many

of the ships are built.

 

Community health centers would grow to over $2 billion, an increase of $304

million, or almost 18 percent, over this year. Bush said he wants to every poor

county to have one of the centers, which are used heavily by the poor.

 

 

 

 

Copyright 2002 Associated Press. . This material may not be

published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

 

 

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