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DEMOCRATS SKIMP ON SPENDING BILL, BUT VA BUDGET
APPEARS SAFE -- Many government agencies lose
out but VA's $3 billion increase is sure to
pass.
Story here...
http://www.fortwayne.com/
mld/newssentinel/16555549.htm
Story below:
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Democrats keep first spending bill tight
ANDREW TAYLOR
Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Liberals looking to Democrats for big spending increases in
the new Congress - in education programs such as Head Start, for example
- will come away disappointed with some of the choices being made in
dividing up money for the rest of this year.
They will find an essentially tightfisted Republican-tilting bill coming
from the Democrats who now are running Congress and picking up the
pieces of what the GOP left undone in 2006.
Military veterans will be OK, as will health researchers, the FBI and
food inspectors. But there will be many losers, including President
Bush, as a $463 billion-or-so catchall spending bill advances through
the House and Senate over the next three weeks.
Bush's "competitiveness initiative" boosting basic research and
improving training and recruitment of math and science teachers won't
fare as well as he'd like. Pentagon requests for implementing a 2005
round of military base closings are likely to get short shrift.
The bill wraps together the budgets through September for 13 Cabinet
agencies. All of the budgeting work was supposed to have been completed
months ago, but Republicans didn't want to make some of the tough
choices before the election and made no serious effort to complete the
work after it.
House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey would have preferred
boosting spending by $13 billion on education, health care and science
programs - but doesn't have the money.
Instead, most federal accounts will be frozen at 2006 levels. There are,
however, scores of exceptions for agencies and programs that simply must
have increases to avoid imposing furloughs and hiring freezes, or
cutting critical services such as housing assistance for more than
200,000 poor people.
Deciding which programs get exempted from the money freeze has prompted
several weeks of arduous negotiations led by Obey, D-Wis., and his
Senate counterpart, Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va.
They announced last month that they will abide by a GOP-set funding cap
for all agency budgets passed at lawmakers' discretion, and they
promised to keep the bill clean of congressional pet projects.
Lobbying has been furious, with lawmakers, agencies, interest groups and
even the rock star Bono weighing in. Pressing for a $1 billion boost to
fight AIDS, malaria and poverty in Africa, Bono wrestled with Obey in a
meeting last month - with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., looking
on - only to emerge without a commitment.
"This isn't over," Bono said in a statement issued after the meeting.
The negotiations have been remarkably secret. What little information
that has emerged comes from lawmakers, lobbyists and staff aides, most
of whom demand anonymity for fear of reprisals.
At issue is about $10 billion available for plugging numerous funding
gaps. Agencies likely to win some of the funds include:
_The Veterans Affairs Department, which is sure to win a $3 billion
increase for the rapidly growing veterans medical care program.
_The National Institutes of Health, which may get a $500 million or so
increase for health research grants.
_The Census Bureau, which is pressing for money to purchase new
hand-held computers for field workers conducting the 2010 Census count.
The agency needs $63 million for the effort.
_The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, to hire people it needs to handle
the expected first license requests for new power plant reactors since
the Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania and extensions of current
plant licenses.
_The Agriculture Department, to avoid temporary layoffs of food
inspectors.
_The Justice Department, to lift a hiring freeze at the Drug Enforcement
Administration and hiring curbs at the FBI.
Among the likely losers are the Pentagon, which can't possibly get all
of a $4 billion increase sought by Bush to implement base closures. His
foreign aid budget also faces cuts - but they won't be applied to allies
such as Israel.
The $10 billion at play represents the difference between the 2006 and
2007 funding "caps" set by Congress last spring, along with money
available once emergencies and other one-time costs were scrubbed from
last year's funding baseline.
An unknown but smaller sum has been gleaned from accounts that are piggy
banks for lawmakers' pet projects for their states and districts.
For instance, local governments will lose $200 million in grants from
the Environmental Protection Agency, mostly given out in increments of
$1 million or less to small communities such as Jeromesville, Ohio;
Spooner, Wis.; and Pennsboro, W.Va., for wastewater treatment
facilities.
According to Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., relief is on the way for
anti-crime programs, but Bush's proposed boosts for the National Science
Foundation can't all be met.
"Our top priority is law enforcement and the FBI," said Mikulski, who
chairs a spending panel responsible for the Commerce and Justice
department budgets. "And then our science funding, and that's a
squeeze."
Still unclear is whether states will receive as much transportation
money as they were promised in the six-year highway funding bill passed
two years ago. To do so would require $3.4 billion more than last year;
72 senators have signed a letter demanding the money.
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Larry Scott
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