DOMESTIC CUTS WOULD SIGNIFICANTLY REDUCE MOST PUBLIC SERVICES

UNPUBLISHED ADMINISTRATION BUDGET DOCUMENTS SHOW DOMESTIC CUTS WOULD SIGNIFICANTLY REDUCE FUNDING FOR MOST PUBLIC SERVICES
By Sharon Parrott, Isaac Shapiro, David Kamin, and Ruth Carlitz
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

The Administration’s budget calls for $214 billion in reductions over five years in annually appropriated domestic programs outside homeland security, compared to current funding levels adjusted only for inflation. These programs, generally referred to as “discretionary” programs, encompass a broad array of public services such as education, environmental protection, transportation, veterans’ health care, medical research, law enforcement, and food and drug safety inspection.

One unusual aspect of this budget is the omission of information about how these cuts would affect particular programs. The budget fails to provide proposed funding levels for individual appropriated programs for years after 2006 — the first time since 1989 that an Administration’s budget has lacked this type of information. As a consequence, the published, widely available budget documents released by the Administration on February 7 provide programmatic details on how the Administration would achieve only the first $18 billion of these cuts, the reductions that would occur in 2006. Some $196 billion in domestic cuts — all of the reductions in years 2007 through 2010 — are left unidentified.