Bush Is Aiming To Cut Spending
By Eric Pianin and Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, February 10, 2001; Page A01
[A few jttmab comments enclosed in "[ ]"]
President Bush is preparing a budget that would require cuts affecting virtually every agency but the Defense and Education departments as he seeks an end to the rapid growth in government spending.
[Rapid growth in spending under a Republican controlled House and Senate! There must be a mistake here.]
The cuts in spending from projected levels could total from $2 billion to $5 billion in the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1 and would affect agencies ranging from the departments of Interior, Energy, Justice and Housing and Urban Development to the Federal Aviation Administration, according to administration and GOP congressional sources.
Since Bush took office, the White House has focused on his tax cut proposal. But with the president planning to submit a budget outline to Congress on Feb. 28, the debate is quickly shifting to how to pay for a tax cut the administration estimates will cost $1.6 trillion over 10 years and still continue to pay down the national debt and satisfy competing demands for additional spending.
The budgetary tightening comes despite recent forecasts of record surpluses, and has forced many government agencies to radically dampen expectations about spending in the coming year. It has touched off internal wrangling over spending priorities that has become so intense that White House budget director Mitchell E. Daniels Jr. recently sent letters to the Department of Energy and other agencies reprimanding officials for complaining about the proposed cuts, the sources said.
"The projections of the vast surplus may have built up expectations more than they should have," said Bill Hoagland, Republican staff director of the Senate Budget Committee. "Obviously, this budget will lower those expectations."
[And who was it that built up those expections Bill?]
Government spending would continue to grow in absolute terms under Bush's emerging budget plan, administration and congressional sources said. But the rate of growth would be far less than in recent years, when the Republican-controlled Congress and President Bill Clinton negotiated last-minute budget deals that frequently sent spending on education, the environment and other initiatives skyrocketing.
[The Republican controlled Congress (House and Senate) part of a skyrocketing budget deal...so hard to believe! It is a little reminiscent of the Reagan years, with the Republican controlled Senate in 6 of the 8 years]
Under Bush's $1.9 trillion fiscal 2002 budget blueprint, overall spending on domestic programs other than Social Security, Medicare and other entitlements would grow by 3 percent to 4 percent -- in contrast to the 12 percent increase approved last year.
[I probably have missed it, but I don't recall Bush talking about this in specifics during the campaign.]
Earlier this month, Daniels voiced alarm over the pace of government spending in recent years and signaled that Bush intends to slow the trend.
[Ooops! Guess they waited till after the election.]
In an interview with the Associated Press yesterday, Daniels said Bush's budget will be "realistic but restrained" and will likely hold spending increases close to the inflation rate.
"There are some people in Washington for whom no budget would be big enough," Daniels said. "I hope they can get over it and realize we can meet an awful lot of needs."
Bush has indicated he will stick with the Clinton administration's planned Pentagon budget of $310 billion for the coming fiscal year, a $15 billion increase but far short of what he promised during the campaign and what many conservatives in Congress were hoping for. The president has put off a decision on whether to seek additional spending for readiness and weapons systems until Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld completes a strategic review.
[Didn't take too long to back off on campaign promises, like 3 weeks.]
The Department of Education is expected to receive a significant budget increase, with much of the money to be used to implement Bush's pledge to reshape the federal role in education. Bush's plan calls for states to receive more funding to conduct annual reading and math tests for students in grades three through eight.
[I don't have school aged children, but I do recall from some conversations that parents who do had complained about all the annual testing that goes on in their schools. Clearly, there isn't enough of this type of testing.]
The Justice Department has been asked to identify $1 billion in cuts in its budget, which had grown the fastest of any agency under Clinton. But Bush administration officials said yesterday that the planned "net reduction" in the $21 billion Justice budget could be closer to $500 million if offsetting funds from other sources become available. Attorney General John D. Ashcroft has countered by proposing a modest increase in overall Justice spending and a sharp increase in the prisons budget, the sources said.
[We already have one of the highest incarceration rates in the world. Ashcroft has the answer: We need more prisons.]
Under the Bush outline, the Federal Aviation Administration's budget would be cut by $568 million -- $200 million from operations and $368 million from capital projects such as airport improvements, sources said. They said this is part of the overall cutback, and that the administration did not even ask what the possible effect might be.
[We wouldn't want to know what the effect might be. I might have hoped to see something different in the budget about the dilapidated traffic control system. But I guess that's not of interest.]
The proposed FAA reduction has ignited an industry-wide lobbying campaign, although there is a general assumption that Congress will restore the money. Much of the spending reduction would eliminate airport projects in the districts of influential House and Senate members.
The Interior Department and the Environmental Protection Agency would face modest spending reductions in Bush's budget, after benefiting from steady increases in recent years. Last year, Congress approved a $1.7 billion increase in Interior spending, for Clinton's land acquisition initiative and for the Bureau of Reclamation.
The Department of Health and Human Services has been instructed to keep its spending request to no more than 6 percent above its current budget, significantly less than the 9 percent increase proposed by Clinton last year.
"Clearly, the focus has been on making sure that it's an efficiently run agency, making sure we are not duplicating services," said an administration official familiar with HHS. "There have been orders to take a hard look at what is going on."
[There's the word of the day efficient. Who could possibly object to effecient? Just reduce a budget and you have more efficiency. So simple.]
Nevertheless, with both Bush and HHS Secretary Tommy G. Thompson having stressed the importance of research, the administration is likely to propose substantially more money for the National Institutes of Health. HHS is still negotiating the size of NIH's budget.
[Score 1 for the Bush Administration; let's make sure though that it doesn't include that nasty research on stem cells though....all those women who have abortions motivated by stem cell research has to be stopped.]
In addition, the administration official said, the agency will need additional funding for several initiatives Bush proposed during his campaign that fall within HHS's jurisdiction. They include a plan to give states $12 billion in each of the next four years to help older Americans afford prescription drugs.
NASA would receive $14 billion, slightly more than it did last year and enough to fully fund all its programs, sources said.
Staff writers Dan Eggen, Michael A. Fletcher, Amy Goldstein, Dan Morgan, Don Phillips and Kathy Sawyer contributed to this report. |
