Washington – President Bush sent Congress a $2.77 trillion budget Monday that would curb programs ranging from health care to education but push aggressively for more oil and gas drilling on the West’s public lands.
The proposed 2007 spending plan would boost the military budget 7 percent – not counting most Iraq war funding – and bolster homeland security. But it would squeeze many other programs in an effort to rein in a deficit projected to hit an all-time high of $423 billion this year.
“My administration has focused the nation’s resources on our highest priority: protecting our citizens and our homeland,” Bush said.
Overall, the budget would boost spending by 2.3 percent from this year.
The budget’s release kicks off a lengthy debate in Congress that likely will last until the next budget year begins in October, or even longer.
Democrats quickly blasted the plan, saying that it targets programs assisting the poor, sick and elderly while sustaining tax cuts mostly for the rich, and that it leaves out most Iraq spending, masking its impact on future deficits.
“President Bush’s budget continues to put special interests first while making worse the financial pressures confronting American families,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.
Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., said that while he supported the Bush budget’s “strong support for defense and homeland security priorities,” the spending plan’s cuts to farm programs, rural development and agriculture research “hit Colorado and other rural states especially hard.”
Bush’s plan calls for killing or sharply cutting more than 140 programs, out a third of them in education. Congress has already expressed opposition to some of the president’s budget-cutting proposals.
In potentially one of the budget’s most controversial provisions, Medicare spending would grow by $36 billion less than previously projected over the next five years, largely through cutting health-care reimbursements for hospitals and nursing homes. Many higher-income seniors would see Medicare premiums go up.
The budget promotes Bush’s plan to expand tax-free health savings accounts as a way to pay for health care.
Despite his emphasis on controlling deficits, Bush also asked that recent temporary tax cuts be made permanent, which would reduce federal tax revenue by an estimated $1.4 trillion over the next 10 years.
The Department of Homeland Security would get a boost of almost 10 percent, including more for disaster preparedness. Federal law agencies such as the FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration would get large increases, but several grant programs to local police would be trimmed.
About $247 million would fund a new “guest worker” program granting temporary visas to immigrants, although Congress has not yet approved such a program.
In Colorado, the Pueblo Chemical Depot weapons-cleanup project would start to get back on track with a $128 million request from an administration that last year sought dramatically reduced funding. Salazar called it “certainly a significant pledge.”
Bush’s budget also proposes $52 million toward the construction of a new $60 million veterans hospital at the Fitzsimons campus in Aurora. “This is of paramount importance to the thousands of Colorado veterans in need of accessible, quality medical care,” said Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo.
Energy development would be among the few non-defense programs getting more money. Interior Secretary Gale Norton said the nation needs increased energy supplies to restrain prices.
“Key among our goals for 2007 are our efforts to enhance America’s energy supply through responsible energy development,” Norton said.
The administration wants to approve about 12,000 new oil and gas wells in 2007, according to budget documents. That’s up from about 7,000 wells approved last year, which was a record high.
Norton proposes to hike the energy program of the Bureau of Land Management, which administers most public drilling lands in Colorado and nearby states, by $27 million, or 25 percent.
Renewable energy development would also get an increase in the wake of Bush’s warning in his State of the Union address that the nation is dangerously “addicted to oil.” But the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden would lose $10 million.
The oil and gas money money would go to hire more BLM staffers to speed drilling permits to companies. BLM also would try to hire more inspectors to fix lapses in environmental protection.
The administration is also asking industry to pay more for some of those permits, though Congress shot down that idea last year.
The oil and gas industry cheered the emphasis on speeding permits, but rejected the idea that companies should pay more for them.
Environmentalists said the budget shows that the Bush administration is turning over the nation’s public lands to oil and gas companies.
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