surprise! * and the repubs are going to SCREW the people even more. (if they get the chance)
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According to a report in Thursday's Washington Post, the White House budget office recently issued guidelines to federal agencies currently planning for the 2006 budget. Those guidelines require substantial spending cuts for almost all domestic programs aside from homeland security, although that supposed Republican priority will be cut as well. Spending on education, so often promoted by Bush as the hallmark of his domestic agenda, would nearly eliminate last year's $1.7 billion increase. The highly successful Women, Infants, and Children nutrition program would lose more than $100 million, leaving many poor families without assistance. Head Start, another successful program that provides early childhood education to deprived children, is slated to lose $177 million, or 2.5 percent of its total budget.
With the cool cynicism that is their trademark, however, Bush and members of his Cabinet pretend to support such "compassionate" programs on the campaign trail even as they continue to attempt to cut those same budget items. As the New York Times noted on May 19, "many administration officials are taking credit for spreading largess through programs that President Bush tried to eliminate or to cut sharply."
So the White House regularly trumpets generous grants to help insure the uninsured, to provide heart defibrillators, to improve rural health care and to train minority physicians and dentists -- without acknowledging that President Bush sought to slash or eliminate those same programs in his last budget, and that his upcoming budgets will neuter those programs and many more.
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Dismantling -- or decimating -- government is Bush's answer to the question that has been puzzling economists: How will the Republicans control their exploding deficits while legislating permanent tax cuts and continuing to fund war, defense and security increases, as well as nondiscretionary entitlements such as Social Security? The president's unshakeable commitment to enormous permanent tax cuts leaves "almost no room" for future domestic spending, according to analysts at the Economic Policy Institute.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2004/05/28/budget/index.html