Budget Battle Never Seems to Change

It has happened for the past two years: President Bush, in a play to fiscal conservatives, draws up a budget request that sends a long list of domestic programs to the slaughter.

Food for infants, toddlers and breast-feeding mothers -- gone. Innovation and technology grants for entrepreneurs -- history. Early-childhood education, job training -- poof.

Then Congress weighs in, condemning Bush for once again ignoring the needs of the disadvantaged Americans who will suffer most from the cuts. The shouting dies down, Congress keeps most of the programs alive, both sides claim victory and they walk away for another year.

For fiscal 2008, which began last October, Bush proposed trimming or eliminating 141 programs in the current budget. Sixteen were eliminated and 13 were trimmed, according to the White House budget office.

For fiscal 2009, Bush wants to cut even more, and as always, he says he means it.

"I proposed a budget that terminates or substantially reduces 151 wasteful or bloated programs," he told a cheering crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference last week. "Those programs total more than $18 billion. And if Congress sends me appropriations bills that exceed the reasonable limits I have set, I will veto the bills."

Bush fared better when Republicans were in control of Congress. For fiscal 2006, he proposed 154 program terminations and reductions, and 89 (52 terminations and 37 reductions) were accepted either fully or in part, saving almost $6.5 billion, according to the Office of Management and Budget. In 2007, he proposed 141, but the Democratic-controlled Congress went along with only 44 (23 terminations and 21 reductions), saving slightly more than $2 billion.

In a statement issued yesterday titled "Spending Taxpayer Dollars Wisely," the White House budget office said the proposed cuts for 2009 "will result in savings to taxpayers and improved government services by eliminating or restructuring low-priority and duplicative programs as well as programs that are not producing results."

Most of the proposed cuts target the same programs that Bush has tried to slash before.

Democrats were again outraged. Yesterday, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) and two of his committee colleagues, Sens. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) and Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), brought senior citizen Judy Cato and recent college grad Gabe Pendas to Capitol Hill for a news conference that excoriated Bush for endangering the 151 programs.

"President Bush will be remembered as the most fiscally irresponsible president ever," Conrad said, according to a release circulated by the Senate Democratic leadership.

"From cutting health care for the most vulnerable among us, to failing to make any real investments to support American manufacturing, this president's priorities are clear," Stabenow added.

Pendas said Bush's budget proposal "cuts over $800 million from college programs for low-income and middle-class Americans." He added: "Instead of funding the nation's priorities and investing in the future of our economy, his budget locks the doors to the college classroom for millions of students who need college the most."

The nonpartisan budget watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense calls the annual routine the "same old song and dance."

"You've either got to put the muscle of the White House behind these program cuts and force them to happen, or recognize it's fiction to count on the savings from these programs and look elsewhere," said Steve Ellis, the group's vice president.

The president's unpopularity and his impending lame-duck status make the cuts even more unlikely, Ellis said.

"After you've failed three, four, five times, maybe it's time to try a different tack," he said.