Bush Proposes to Eliminate Employment Services Programs
[While employment for people with significant disabilities
continues to hover around 70%, the New York Times reports: "The Bush [budget]
plan would eliminate 65 programs and cut back 63 others.... Among other
actions, it would eliminate ... $38 million for projects to provide employment
services to people with disabilities." The complete text of the article
follows:]
Bush Budget Cuts a Variety of Programs
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS
The New York Times
February 4, 2004
WASHINGTON, Feb. 3 - The White House on Tuesday released a list of 128
government programs that it plans to cut back or eliminate, including money
for drug treatment centers and secondary school counselors and modernization
of the air traffic system.
The list highlights the effect of President Bush's budget on a variety of
popular programs in education, health, housing and even law enforcement.
But the list also demonstrated how even seemingly tough surgery on federal
spending programs would produce only a tiny reduction in the budget deficit.
The Bush plan would eliminate 65 programs and cut back 63 others, but the
total savings for next year would add up to only $4.9 billion. By comparison,
the White House is predicting that the federal deficit will hit $521 billion
this year and $364 billion in 2005.
Administration officials defended the budget on Tuesday in hearings before the
House Budget Committee and House Ways and Means Committee, arguing that the
key to deficit reduction is faster economic growth and cutbacks in government
spending.
Mr. Bush would increase military spending by 7 percent and domestic security
by 10 percent but would limit growth in discretionary domestic programs to
just one-half of 1 percent.
At the same time, he is pushing Congress to make permanent most of his tax
cuts from 2001 and 2003, which with other proposed tax cuts would increase the
federal deficit by an additional $1.1 trillion over the next 10 years.
"The president is committed to spending what is necessary to provide for our
security and restraining spending elsewhere," Joshua B. Bolten, the White
House budget director, told the budget committee.
But Democrats accused the administration of condoning huge deficits and
glossing over the cost of Mr. Bush's plan to make his tax cuts permanent and
extend scores of other expiring tax breaks at the cost of an additional $50
billion over the next 10 years.
"Every year of this administration, the bottom line of the budget has gotten
worse and worse and worse," said Representative John M. Spratt Jr. of South
Carolina, the ranking Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee.
Mr. Spratt attacked the administration as once again refusing to include in
its initial budget plan the potential costs of keeping American troops in Iraq
and Afghanistan, as well as counting on revenues from proposals that have been
repeatedly defeated in Congress, like oil leasing fees from the Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge.
In addition, Mr. Bush faces opposition to the spending restraints from
lawmakers in his own party. On Tuesday, barely 24 hours after Mr. Bush
unveiled his $2.4 trillion budget for next year, the administration threatened
to veto a $311 billion transportation bill that the Republican- controlled
Senate passed on Monday. The Senate bill would authorize $55 billion more for
highways and mass transit over the next six years than Mr. Bush has proposed,
and a bill in the Republican-controlled House would authorize nearly $100
billion more.
"There is one thing we can control, if we want to control it, and that is
spending," said the chairman of the House Budget Committee, Representative Jim
Nussle, Republican of Iowa, who has criticized the huge transportation bill.
Though Mr. Bush has proposed big increases in spending on education for the No
Child Left Behind initiative, the administration's list calls for eliminating
or cutting back more than a dozen other education programs. Among other
actions, it would eliminate $34 million spent to help pay for secondary school
counselors; $30 million for a program in schools to combat alcohol abuse; $38
million for projects to provide employment services to people with
disabilities; and $18 million for a national writing project.
The administration also called for reducing the Federal Aviation
Administration's budget for modernization of the air traffic system by $393
million. The Internal Revenue Service, which is struggling to crack down on
abusive tax shelters and outright cheating, would see its budget for
modernization reduced from $388 million to $285 million.
Despite proposing a big increase in spending on domestic security, the
administration is also proposing cuts in federal grants to local police, fire
and emergency rescue departments. Money for so-called first responders would
be cut from $4.4 billion this year to $3.5 billion next year.
# # #
=====================
All JFA postings from 1995 to present are available at:
www.aapd-dc.org/JFA/JFAabout.html
=====================
JUSTICE FOR ALL -- A Service of the American Association of People with
Disabilities
www.aapd-dc.org/JFA/JFAabout.html
There's strength in numbers! Be a part of a national coalition of people with
disabilities and join AAPD today.
www.aapd-dc.org
Last Updated on
04/18/04
webmaster@namiscc.org
