Bush to propose spending freeze

President Bush will propose an increase of less than 1 percent for federal programs not related to defense or homeland security, effectively freezing discretionary spending in the next budget, after coming under fire from conservatives to control runaway spending.

But the president will propose increasing governmentwide homeland security funding by 9.7 percent in the fiscal 2005 budget, and the military budget is expected to increase by a small amount.

“This is going to be an austere budget,” White House spokesman Trent Duffy said of the budget that Mr. Bush will send to Congress on Feb. 2.

The less-than-1 percent growth will be the smallest since Mr. Bush took office in 2001 — and the lowest since his father, President Bush, proposed his fiscal 1993 budget.

“But we must spend what is necessary to win the war on terror, protect the American people at home and to restore economic growth. And because of these life-and-death priorities, the rest of government spending must be restrained,” Mr. Duffy said.

Some fiscal conservatives, who sharply criticized the president and congressional Republicans this week for spending like “drunken sailors,” said the proposal leaked yesterday is a step in the right direction so long as Mr. Bush follows through.

Brian Riedl, a budget analyst at the Heritage Foundation, said the proposal is “definitely a good start.”

“The key question is whether the White House will back up this proposal with a veto threat, because last year the president proposed a 4 percent increase and, with the passage of the omnibus spending bill, he’s about to sign a 9 percent increase,” he said.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Tennessee Republican, told the U.S. Conference of Mayors yesterday that the 1 percent limit “is tight. Why? Because we have to reduce this deficit.”

Some programs, including education initiatives, will rise by more than 1 percent, and others will be cut by an offsetting amount, Mr. Duffy said.

“It’s safe to assume that there will be some proposals for streamlining some programs and to refocus spending on programs that actually work,” he said.

For example, the president’s budget blueprint will boost counterterrorism funding through the Justice Department to $2.6 billion, a 19 percent increase over 2004. The money will increase the number of FBI agents investigating terrorism and will bring overall FBI funding to $5.1 billion in fiscal 2005, a 60 percent increase over 2001 levels, the White House said.

Some other programs therefore will have to be trimmed substantially to make up for the high expenditure on counterterrorism.

In his State of the Union speech on Tuesday, Mr. Bush vowed to restrain spending in the next fiscal year.

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