Bush budget favoring defense, security
(AP)
Updated: 2006-02-06 09:43

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.

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 a passenger security fee from the current $2.50 per flight to $5, a proposal Congress rejected last year.

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.

Defenders of this program and others at risk are certain to fight aggressively.

Even programs not targeted for elimination are subject to tight budgets. That includes such previously favored agencies as the National Institutes of Health.

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 last month, 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; that was less than half the amount sought by the administration. Medicaid is a joint state-federal program that provides health care for the poor.

Bush's budget does contain some winners outside of defense and homeland security. 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.

His energy initiative seeks, by 2025, to replace three-fourths of the oil the United States now imports from the Middle East, partly by boosting ethanol production.

Missing from this year's budget is the president's big proposal from last year to overhaul Social Security by creating private accounts. The idea went nowhere in Congress.

Instead, the president this year is calling for creation of a bipartisan commission to study ways to deal with the exploding costs of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.