Editorial: Long on promises, short on funds

03/07/2006

Congress needs to improve on President Bush’s budget.

Star Tribune Editorial
Published: March 07, 2006

You can always expect a certain gap between words and deeds in Washington, D.C., but with the budget that President Bush submitted to Congress last month, the gap widens into a breathtaking chasm. A chief executive who has said noble things about energy conservation, medical research and a skilled workforce, for example, somehow couldn’t find the money to support them.

This week members of Congress begin writing their own budget for 2007, and congressional moderates such as Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., need to step forward and write a blueprint more in line with the nation’s priorities.

Even at first glance, the president’s budget has some galling contradictions. In his State of the Union Address, Bush promised to begin weaning the United States from its dependence on imported oil. Yet his budget for next year cuts conservation programs in the Energy Department by 17 percent (from this year’s level, adjusted for inflation). Last week in India, the president urged American workers to upgrade their skills so they can compete in the world economy. Yet his budget cuts Labor Department employment and training programs by 10 percent, or nearly $1 billion.

In a departure from past practice that had many analysts scratching their heads, this year the White House didn’t release five-year budget projections in its submission to Congress. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal-leaning think tank, obtained a copy of those projections and now we know why. Several popular domestic programs—including veterans’ health care and energy assistance for the poor—get attractive budget increases in 2007 but then are slated for deep cuts after Bush leaves office in 2009.

If the White House were, as it says, merely trimming wasteful and ineffective programs, one might understand this budget. But Senate moderates such as Coleman will know better. Head Start, the proven preschool program for poor families, would lose thousands of slots next year under Bush’s budget. Pell Grants, a crucial support for poor and middle-class college students, would be cut by 12 percent over the next five years.

No one expects a Republican Congress to repudiate the president’s budget outright. But lawmakers can at least produce a budget that is consistent with the promises of the president and the priorities of the nation.