WASHINGTON — More than half the 65 federal programs that President Bush wants to kill next year are related to education, a move that could further inflame Democratic detractors who for the last year have been questioning his commitment to education.
Bush proposed eliminating the programs Monday as he sent Congress his budget plan for fiscal 2005, which begins in October. The White House said that killing the 65 programs would save a projected $4.9 billion, a small amount compared to this year's record $521-billion deficit.
It is far from clear, however, that Congress will go along with Bush's blueprint. The president has tried to kill some of the same projects before, but Congress has kept funding them.
Of the 65 programs targeted this time around, 38 are in the Department of Education, according to the president's budget document. They account for $1.4 billion in projected savings.
Overall, the president is seeking $57.3 billion for the Department of Education, which many previous Republican administrations and GOP-controlled Congresses have sought to eliminate altogether. That amount represents a $1.7 billion increase, or 3%, over the fiscal year 2004 level.
Although Josh Bolten, director of the Office of Management and Budget in the White House, announced at a briefing Monday that Bush wanted to terminate the 65 programs, his office declined to release a complete list of the programs, leaving activists for education, housing and labor programs scrambling to learn the fate of their favorite endeavors.
Bolten said 63 additional "major" programs faced significant spending reductions.
The projects Bush would eliminate included a $246-million effort to improve early childhood education in low-income neighborhoods and a $174-million program to foster learning in large high schools. Also targeted are programs that help gifted and talented students, promote arts in education and attempt to stop students from dropping out.
A White House spokesman said many of the programs were "well-meaning," but also duplicative or no longer useful.
"This president's philosophy is to provide maximum flexibility and block-grant dollars to state and local school districts to design what they feel they need to educate their students, in line with the No Child Left Behind Act," said Trent Duffy, deputy White House press secretary.
But lawmakers on Capitol Hill may have different ideas.
