President Bush sent Congress a $2.57 trillion federal budget Monday designed to project U.S. power and priorities overseas while squeezing government programs at home-but despite politically painful cuts it would not make a sizable dent in the nation's record deficit next year.
While pumping more money into the Pentagon and foreign aid programs, the budget for the 2006 fiscal year would slash funding for a broad array of other government services as part of the deepest domestic reductions proposed since the Reagan era.
Yet because of the cost of the continuing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, documents released Monday make it clear that the administration may make little, if any, progress in curbing deficits in the short run.
The budget projects the deficit falling from an all-time high of $427 billion this year to $390 billion next year, but does not count the warfare expenses it expects in 2006. If the administration continues to spend at current rates, it will need more than $37 billion for the wars in 2006, leaving the deficit undiminished.
\It is a budget that sets priorities,' Bush said after meeting with his second-term Cabinet for the first time. ""Our priorities are winning the war on terror, protecting our homeland, growing our economy. It's a budget that focuses on results. Taxpayers in America don't want us spending their money on something that's not achieving results.'
But as Bush targeted popular programs for farmers, low-income children and police departments, the reaction on Capitol Hill immediately signaled a tough slog for his budget.
""The president's budget is a hoax on the American people,' said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. ""The two issues that dominated the president's State of the Union address-Iraq and Social Security-are nowhere to be found in this budget.' The spending blueprint, she added, ""is fiscally irresponsible, morally irresponsible and a failure of leadership.'
Some Republicans fretted because it did not include the transition costs envisioned by Bush's plans to restructure Social Security. Others stayed silent or produced mixed evaluations. In separate statements, House Speaker Dennis Hastert, Ill., House Majority Whip Roy Blunt, Mo., and House Budget Committee Chairman Jim Nussle, Iowa, all used the same language to describe Bush's plan as a ""starting point.'
