President Bush proposed a $2.77 trillion budget for 2007 Monday that cuts domestic programs from Medicare to community policing while bolstering security spending, even as he seeks to tame a soaring deficit.
Facing election-year pressure from conservative Republicans to get tougher on spending, Bush asked Congress to virtually freeze discretionary programs outside national security.
Bush proposed a record $439.3 billion defense budget for 2007 aimed at fighting both unconventional terrorism and major conflicts with other nations if necessary. But the Pentagon budget did not include tens of billions of dollars in proposed new financing for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which the White House will seek separately.
At the same time the president renewed his call for Congress to make his tax cuts permanent even as his blueprint projected a widening of the federal deficit to $423 billion this year, up more than $100 billion from fiscal 2005.
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[Nine of the 15 Cabinet agencies would see cuts in fiscal 2007, including justice, transportation and education. Among those targeted by the budget knife are community policing; a program to combat violence against women; and vocational education.
The budget aims to keep overall growth in discretionary spending below the inflation rate, which was 3.4 percent in 2005. Bush proposed to scale back or abolish 141 discretionary programs that he says are performing poorly. Discretionary programs are those that Congress funds anew each year.
Bush also hopes to squeeze $65 billion in savings over five years from mandatory programs, including Medicare, the nation's health insurance program for the elderly and disabled, farm supports and pension and other labor-related programs.
Bush inherited a budget surplus from the Clinton administration, but that quickly turned around and the deficit soared on his watch, reaching a record $413 billion in fiscal 2004.
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