Agency: Department of Agriculture
Spending: $19.4 billion
Percentage change from 2004: -9.6 percent
Mandatory Outlays: $73.4 billion
Total Spending: $92.7 billion
Highlights:
—Would cut $587 million from farm price supports, mainly by cutting payments to farmers by 5 percent and reducing the annual ceiling on payments from $360,000 to $250,000. Would close loopholes allowing big cotton and rice operations to get payments well above the limits. Would reduce loan availability.
Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said that reducing the deficit will improve the economy and that everyone must help: "There isn't any doubt farmers understand their future depends on a stable national economy," Johanns said.
—Food stamp spending would grow by $3.5 billion, or 10 percent, to a total of $36 billion, to cover 2.7 million more recipients and food price inflation. Also, school lunch spending would grow $550 million to $12.9 billion, and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, or WIC, would grow by $335 million, to a total of $5.6 billion.
—Crop insurance spending would drop by $140 million annually — but not for another year. Minimum coverage levels would rise and direct payments would require producers to buy crop insurance.
—The administration would move $300 million from the department's foreign food aid program to the U.S. Agency for International Development. This would allow USAID to buy food products overseas for foreign aid, rather than from U.S. farmers.
Agency: Department of Defense
Spending: $419.3 billion
Percentage change from 2005: +4.5 percent
Mandatory Outlays: $1.9 billion
Total Spending: $421.2 billion
Highlights:
—Would increase military pay by 3.1 percent and civilian pay by 2.3 percent.
—Would reduce the number of Navy aircraft carriers from 12 to 11 and end production of Air Force F/A-22 stealth fighter jets earlier than previously planned.
—Includes no money for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which are being paid for with extra, or supplementary, budgets that are expected to total $100 billion this year and a similar amount in 2006.
The budget would add people and money to the special operations forces to support the global War on Terror.
Agency: Department of Education
Spending: $56 billion
Percentage change from 2005: -1 percent
Mandatory outlays: $7.4 billion
Total Spending: $63.4 billion
Highlights:
—Would increase aid to poor districts by 4.7 percent, to $13.3 billion.
—Would end 48 programs and reduce spending on 16 others to free $4.7 billion for other priorities. All federal spending on vocational education — $1.2 billion — would be eliminated and redirected toward other high school initiatives.
—Would spend almost $18 billion on Pell Grants to help poor students attend college, an increase of 45 percent. That money would come mainly from deep cuts in subsidies to lenders.
—Would spend $200 million on a program to help high school students who read below grade level. That would be an eight-fold increase in the Striving Readers' current $25 million budget.
—Would create a $500 million fund to reward teachers whose students make great progress.
— Would cut at least $355 million from programs for safe and drug-free schools.
The start of Bush's second-term school agenda has two big themes: expanding his No Child Left Behind law in high schools, and overhauling federal aid for college students.
But to pay for it, Bush is calling for big cuts, too, and Congress may balk. Overall education spending would drop slightly in 2006 after increasing yearly during his first term.
Bush is shifting focus from early grades to high schools, with more than $2 billion in help for struggling students, math and science partnerships and Advanced Placement tests. He would require state math and reading testing in grades nine to 11, an expansion of two years.
At the same time, Bush would cut almost $2 billion in popular high school programs deemed "ineffective," including vocational education, Upward Bound, Talent Search and GEAR UP.
His plan to increase the maximum Pell Grant for students and to end the program's $4.3 billion deficit would require major spending cuts in the student loan program. The administration says it can save that money mainly by reducing payments to lenders.
Agency: Department of Energy
Spending: $23.4 billion
Percentage change from 2005: -2 percent
Highlights:
—Would increase spending for nuclear waste disposal by $79 million, to $651 million.
—Would cut spending for cleaning up large amounts of radioactive contamination and hazardous waste at 114 sites in 31 states and one U.S. territory by $779 million, to $6.5 billion
President Bush would spend $651 million toward completing the license application process and constructing a national repository for nuclear waste at Nevada's Yucca Mountain. He wants to spend $56 million to build what would be the first new nuclear power plant in the United States in three decades. Spending to secure nuclear material in Russia and newly independent states of the former Soviet Union would be $246 million.
Agency: Environmental Protection Agency
Spending: $7.6 billion
Percentage change from 2005: -5.6 percent
Highlights:
—Low-interest loans to states for water quality protection projects would drop by a third, to $730 million. That would mean less money to treat wastewater, reduce pollution from nonspecific sources and manage watersheds and estuaries.
—Other funding to improve the nation's aging infrastructure for water systems would be cut by 83 percent, to $69 million.
President Bush proposed more money for the program that cleans up a third of the nation's Superfund toxic waste cleanup sites, those for which the agency has been unable to pin the costs on a polluter. Superfund would grow by 2.5 percent, to nearly $1.28 billion.
He also would add 36 percent to programs for redeveloping lesser contaminated sites known as "brownfields," bringing that budget to $121 million. He also would spend $50 million for improving the health of the Great Lakes, more than double the amount proposed for this year.
Agency: Department of Health and Human Services
Spending: $67.2 billion
Percentage change from 2004: -1.2 percent
Mandatory outlays: $573.5 billion
Total spending: $640.6 billion
Highlights:
—Existing law sets spending for Medicare at $340 billion, a 17 percent increase over last year, mostly for the prescription drug benefit that takes effect this year. Bush proposes no significant increases over that amount.
—Medicaid and SCHIP, which provides health care to poor adults and children, is set by law to increase 2.2 percent to about $198 billion. Bush is proposing no significant increase over that amount.
—Bush proposes cutting discretionary spending by about 1 percent or $788 million. Targeted for cuts were the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Administration for Children and Families, the Administration on Aging and the office of HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt.
The Bush administration proposed little change in Medicare and Medicaid spending laws, instead challenging states to trim waste on their end of the programs.
Leavitt accused states of mismanaging their share of Medicaid, the health insurance program for the poor. He challenged governors to close loopholes and end double dipping that he said cheats taxpayers of $60 billion over 10 years.
Agency: Department of Homeland Security
Spending: $34.2 billion
Percentage change from 2005: +6.8 percent
Highlights:
—Would increase Border and Transportation spending by 10 percent, to $16 billion, including $37 million for 210 new border patrol agents.
—Would create a nuclear detection office to monitor and report attempts to import, assemble or transport unsanctioned nuclear or radiological materials. The budget also would double spending, to $262 million, on developing detection devices for Customs and Border Protection agents.
—Would cut state and local coordination efforts by $420 million, or 11 percent.
Homeland Security is one of the few agencies that would not suffer an overall spending cut in 2006. The new spending largely comes from more than $4.8 billion in fees — 60 percent more than is expected in the current fiscal year. To do this, the White House proposes increasing airline passenger fees by $3 in 2006, raising the cost from $2,50 to $5.50 for each leg of a round-trip ticket.
Agency: Department of Housing and Urban Development
Spending: $28.5 billion
Percentage change from 2005: -11.5 percent
Highlights:
—Would eliminate community development block grant programs, funded at $4.7 billion in 2005. That is part of an administration proposal to consolidate 18 community development programs from various agencies into a new $3.7 billion economic development program for distressed communities to be overseen by the Commerce Department.
—Would increase funding by 7 percent for a popular program that helps low-income families pay rent, to $15.8 billion. The proposal would restore cuts in the current budget and account for inflation.
Bush said he intends to send Congress a separate proposal later this year to give local housing authorities more flexibility to run their programs.
—Proposes a 14 percent increase, to $5.7 billion, in spending on improvements and upkeep of public housing. The proposal restores some of the cuts in the current budget that occurred after Congress reworked the funding formula for the program.
—Proposes elimination of the HOPE VI program, and asks Congress to rescind the $143 million it had already approved in the 2005 budget. Congress has rebuffed similar requests in the past to eliminate the program, which helps housing agencies replace dilapidated public housing units with mostly larger townhouses and detached homes to create mixed-income communities. The president says a construction backlog in unfinished projects from previous years eliminates the need for new spending.
Agency: Department of Interior
Spending: $10.6 billion
Percentage change from 2005: -1.1 percent
Highlights:
—Would add 2 percent to spending by the Bureau of Land Management, which handles permits for oil and gas drilling. That would increase the agency's budget to nearly $1.74 billion.
—Would cut nearly 3 percent from the budget for the National Park Service, reducing it to about $2.25 billion.
President Bush said his top priority for the department is promoting energy development to reduce imports. He proposes to cut spending by the Bureau of Reclamation and Bureau of Indian Affairs. But the Office of the Special Trustee, which is sorting out the huge class-action lawsuit brought by American Indians to reclaim lost royalties, would see its budget would increase 33 percent, to $304 million. Bush is proposing a 2.4 percent increase in spending for the Fish and Wildlife Service, to $1.32 billion.
Agency: Department of Justice
Spending: $20.3 billion.
Percentage change from 2005: 1 percent.
Mandatory Outlays: $2.2 billion
Total Spending: $22.5 billion
Highlights:
—The FBI budget would increase by 11 percent, to $5.7 billion, including an increase of $294 million for counterterrorism and counterintelligence activities and $117 million for the intelligence program.
Much of the proposed spending increase reflects the agency's top two priorities of combatting terrorism and foreign espionage.
—The Drug Enforcement Administration would see a 4 percent increase, to $1.7 billion, with a focus on disrupting three dozen major drug organizations.
—The Community Oriented Policing Services, or COPS program, which provides grants for state and local agencies to hire police officers, would be cut from $499 million to $22 million.
—The State Criminal Alien Assistance Program, $297 million last year, would be eliminated.
Congress has resisted similar proposals by the president in previous years.
Agency: Department of Labor
Spending: $11.5 billion
Percentage Change from 2005: -4.4 percent
Mandatory Outlays: $40.5 billion
Total Spending: $52 billion
Highlights:
—Would cut funding to the Bureau of International Labor Affairs to $12 million, from $93 million in Bush's 2005 budget. The bureau conducts research on and helps formulate international economic, trade, immigration and labor policies.
—The Office of Disability Employment Policy would see its funding reduced from $47 million to $28 million.
—The Occupational Safety and Health Administration's funding would rise slightly to $467 million, from $464 million in 2005. Some of the money would be used to improve OSHA's ability to get timely data on worker injuries and illnesses. The Mine Safety and Health Administration also would see a small increase, to $280 million from $279 million.
—The 2006 budget also includes $7 million to fight fraud and corruption in labor unions. Money would be used to beef up audits, help hire 48 new auditors, and investigate and combat embezzlement of union funds.
— A total of $75 million would go toward helping recently released prisoners make a successful transition back to society and to employment
Agency: State Department
Spending: $32.7 billion
Percentage change from 2005: +15.6 percent
Highlights:
—Would allocate $22.8 billion for military and economic assistance, compared with $19.7 billion in the current fiscal year.
—Would provide $5.7 billion for nations considered to be on the front line against terrorism.
—Would provide $2.8 billion for the president's HIV/AIDS program, going into its third year.
Key goals include supporting Iraq and Afghanistan to make a transition to democracy and aiding key partners in the war on terror, such as Turkey, Jordan, Pakistan, Indonesia and the Philippines.
The emergency HIV/AIDS plan supports programs in more than 100 countries, with a focus on the hardest hit: 12 African countries, Guyana, Haiti and Vietnam.
The budget also would allocate $734.5 million to the Andean Counterdrug Initiative for eradication and interception of narcotics in Bolivia, Colombia and Peru.
"Winning the war on terror is the highest foreign policy priority of this administration," the State Department budget submission said.
Agency: Department of Transportation
Spending: $57.5 billion
Percentage change from 2005: -1 percent
Mandatory outlays: $1.2 billion
Total spending: $58.7 billion
Highlights:
—Would eliminate Amtrak's operating subsidy and provide $360 million for capital investment; the agency received $.12 billion this year in operating subsidy and capital investment.
—Would cut airport spending for relieving congestion and improving safety by 13.6 percent, or $472 million, from $3.5 billion.
—Would increase spending for a new Transportation Department headquarters building by 49 percent, to $100 million from $67 million.
President Bush has consistently proposed cutting Amtrak funding, and Cular road construction projects would require passage of the highway bill, which is more than a year overdue because of an impasse between Congress and the administration over spending levels.
As air traffic continues to increase, cuts to the Federal Aviation Administration budget are especially worrisome to the aviation industry. Bush is proposing to hire 1,250 air traffic controllers, less than half the 1,249 the FAA said it planned to hire in 2006.
Agency: Department of the Treasury
Spending: $11.6 billion
Percentage Change from 2005: +3.9 percent
Mandatory Outlays: $41.3 billion
Total Spending: $52.9 billion
Highlights:
—The biggest chunk of the department's budget — $10.7 billion — would go to the Internal Revenue Service. That's up from $10.2 billion in Bush's 2005 budget. Approximately $265 million would pay for additional IRS audits, collection efforts and tax-fraud enforcement.
—An estimated $56 million would help ease tax filing by providing more forms that can be filed electronically.
— More than $100 million would go toward detecting and stopping financial crimes, money laundering and terrorist financing.
—The Community Development Financial Institutions Fund would be cut to just $8 million, from $56 million in Bush's 2005 budget. The fund aims to expand the availability of credit, investment capital and financial services in distressed urban and rural communities.
"The president's budget for Treasury reflects the department's top priorities, such as ensuring America's economic strength and fighting the financial war on terror, while also demonstrating the fiscal responsibility necessary to reduce the deficit," said Treasury Secretary John Snow.
Agency: Department of Veterans Affairs
Spending: $33.4 billion
Percentage change from 2005: + 2.7 percent
Mandatory Outlays: $37.9 billion
Total Spending: $71.3 billion
Highlights:
—Would raise medical care spending from $21.6 billion to $22.4 billion.
—Would increase spending by $240 million on inpatient care for veterans with problems related to mental illness, including alcohol and drug use.
After four years of increases in the agency's budget, President Bush wants veterans to start picking up more of the tab.
He asks veterans who have the highest incomes among those seeking VA health care and who do not have service-connected illnesses or injuries to pay a $250 annual fee. Bush also wants to increase prescription drug co-payments for such veterans from $7 to $15 for a 30-day drug supply. More than 2 million veterans could be affected.
The fees make up much of the increase in medical care spending.
Bush has made similar requests in previous budgets, only to be soundly rejected by members of Congress. But the environment is different this year with new House and Senate veterans affairs committee chairmen, at least one of whom has been supportive of Bush's efforts to focus resources on certain veterans.
"Any (fee) increase is going to be shifting the cost on the back of veterans," said Dave Autry, Disabled American Veterans spokesman. "Vets are owed a debt and the government has said they are eligible for health care. The government needs to pay for it. It's a continuing cost of our national defense."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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