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Bush plans leanest budget
By Donald Lambro
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
From the Nation/Politics section
President Bush will propose a virtual freeze on overall non-defense discretionary spending in next year's budget and will abolish or consolidate wasteful, duplicative programs, according to administration budget officials.
Deep spending cuts are slated for housing and community development block grants, scientific research, agriculture and veterans programs, among other departments and agencies that, along with higher tax revenue from a growing economy, could shrink last year's $400 billion deficit by more than $150 billion, said budget officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The officials said the budget will essentially freeze aggregate discretionary spending at this year's levels.
Last year, Congress kept the rise in discretionary appropriations, excluding defense and homeland security, to less than 1 percent as Mr. Bush requested. But overall non-emergency discretionary spending increased by about 4 percent.
Mr. Bush and his administration have come under increasing criticism from spending critics who accuse them and Republicans in Congress of campaigning on budget-cutting rhetoric while pursuing big government policies over the past four years.
The president, in an interview with The Washington Times last week, said the new budget he will submit to Congress "will be a tough budget." White House budget officials say the budget for fiscal 2006, which begins Oct. 1, will be their leanest ever.
Spending critics say they will believe it when they see it.
"It wouldn't take much to make it the leanest budget in years, given the spending spree they've been on in the last several years," said Brian Riedl, a budget analyst at the Heritage Foundation.
"Overall spending has jumped 23 percent in the last three years. Non-defense, non-homeland security discretionary spending has leaped 39 percent in the last three years. We've been on a course of runaway spending, unrestrained entitlements and crippling debt which will lead to higher taxes and a poor economy," Mr. Riedl said in an interview.
