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Bush

Bush WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Bush administration sent its fiscal 2002 budget proposal to Congress today, setting the stage for what could become a battle royal in Washington between the two major parties over not only the level of President Bush's proposed tax cuts, but also which agencies and programs will endure decreases in funding. Speaking briefly to reporters in the Oval Office on Monday morning as he convened a Cabinet meeting, Bush held up a copy of the budget for the television cameras and said, "This is a budget that protects taxpayers, protects children, protects our surplus, and represents compassionate conservatism." Whitehouse.gov: President Bush's budget blueprint "Washington is known for its pork," the president continued. "This budget funds our needs without the fat. It represents a new way of doing business in Washington and a new way of thinking. It puts the taxpayers first, and that is exactly where they belong." Since taking office in January, Bush has pledged to hold the growth rate of government spending at 4 percent in 2002, down from the 6 percent and 8 percent rates seen through many of the Clinton years. Congressional Democrats are waiting nervously to see just how the president will accomplish that growth rate, coupled with his planned increases in funding for education programs, research and development, and for key federal organizations such as the National Institutes of Health. The Democrats have maintained that some vital programs are likely to suffer under the new Bush budget, and they believe that a variety of health care programs, the Medicare health insurance program for seniors, the Defense Department, and the Agriculture and Transportation departments are the most likely to take the hits. "When people see the budget, they're going to say, 'Oh, my God, I wanted a tax cut, but I didn't know what you were going to do to health care and to Medicare and national defense,'" said Sen. John Breaux, D-Louisiana, on the Sunday "This Week" program on ABC. Critics have said spending cuts are being driven not by real needs but to fit with his proposed tax cuts, but Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill discounted those concerns. "We're trying to do the people's business, and what we have proposed in this budget is what the president and the rest of us believe is appropriate for the people," O'Neill said Monday. "We don't look at this as satisfying a particular lobby or interest group, or even a political party. This is about trying to do the right thing for the people of the United States." Breaux: "When people see the budget, they're going to say...'I wanted a tax cut, but I didn't know what you were going to do to health care.'" The Associated Press reported that some of the cuts in the Bush budget are made to rural health, disease prevention and mental health programs. The Community Oriented Police Services program, a Clinton effort to put 100,000 new police officers on the streets, would be cut by 17 percent to $855 million, with some of the money redirected to putting officers in schools, a Justice Department official said on condition of anonymity. Bush's budget also proposes cuts in several other Clinton initiatives, the AP reported, including efforts to combat nuclear proliferation, coordinate health care for the uninsured, promote energy conservation and boost economic development in poor communities. Bush provided some hints as to the contents of the budget Monday morning but spoke only of programs he has decided to boost. Among those: an increase in funding for college Pell grants, a $21 billion spending hike for food safety programs, and a $67 million mentoring program for children whose parents are imprisoned. He also said he intended to increase funding for child abuse prevention programs by 67 percent, while "fighting crime" with an $87 million increase in spending for more "front-line" prosecutors. He also spoke of spending increases for a program that buys child safety locks for handguns. All the while, Bush said, his budget also combats excessive corporate subsidies. The appearance of the Bush budget proposal -- a bound document larger than a major metropolitan area's combined yellow and white pages -- is timed a bit oddly this year. In most years, the president sends his budget proposal to Congress by mid- to late February, thereby launching the lengthy budgeting and appropriations process in the House and Senate. But Bush has been in office for fewer than 100 days, and his White House Office of Management and Budget has needed extra time to get up to speed on the intricacies and complexities of the full federal budgeting process. Bush sent a "blueprint" budget to Congress in February, following his first joint address to both chambers of Congress. That document was only 207 pages in length and included little in the way of detail about where the administration planned to make its cuts. As thin on detail as that blueprint was, the Republican-dominated House and Senate moved forward nonetheless through March and into this month to get the long march toward the creation of a final fiscal 2002 budget under way. The House and Senate have already passed competing versions of their fiscal 2002 budget resolutions -- versions that will have to be reconciled in a House-Senate conference later this month, when members return from their two-week Easter recess. The congressional budget resolution sets the stage for the 13 appropriations subcommittees in each chamber to determine the yearly funding levels for every federal department, agency and program. Those subcommittees produce individual spending bills that must wend their way through Congress before they are signed into law by the president, a process that should end -- theoretically -- by October 1, the beginning of the next fiscal year. Cheney: Excessive bills will be vetoed Among the challenges for the House and Senate members appointed to the budget resolution conference will be finding a bridge to close the gap between the Senate's prescribed $1.2 trillion tax cut, approved last week, and the $1.6 trillion, 10-year cut desired by the House. O'Neill said negotiations between House and Senate members could restore much of that. "I would expect the final number to be close to, if not at, the president's proposed level," he said. The House voted in March to approve a budget resolution that closely mirrors the president's priorities, including his long-held tax relief plans. The budget submitted to Congress today by the administration is valued at some $1.96 trillion in yearly spending. Vice President Dick Cheney, speaking Sunday, braced the administration for Democratic criticism, which will gain steam in two weeks when members of the congressional minority return to Washington following their recess. The budget, Cheney said, redirects federal money to federal programs that exhibit palpable payoffs. He warned that Bush would veto any appropriations bills he considers excessive. Bibliography:

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