WASHINGTON — President Bush on Monday submitted a $3.1-trillion budget for the next fiscal year that reflected his strategy for dealing with a costly war and a troubled economy: substantially boost military expenditures, rein in domestic spending -- including for Medicare -- and more than double the deficit.
The proposal set the stage for a long election-year struggle, drawing sharp criticism from the Democratic majority in Congress as well as a scattering of Republicans concerned about the president's habit of leaving large chunks of the spending out of his annual budget blueprint.
The proposal calls for making permanent Bush's 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, which have been widely criticized as skewed to the rich and which would begin expiring next year. Doing so would cost Washington more than a half-trillion dollars in forgone revenue over the next five years and more than $2 trillion over the next decade, but the president has argued that they play an important role in stimulating economic growth.
The new budget would increase Pentagon spending by 8.1% -- to $518.3 billion, plus add an additional $70 billion to fight terrorism. By some measures, the combination is the 11th consecutive year of defense spending increases.
White House aides acknowledged that the new numbers don't reflect the full amount that will be needed to prosecute the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan over the next year. The president has regularly handled the conflicts as emergency spending and therefore outside normal budget channels.
Even as he sought to increase military spending, Bush proposed to slow substantially the growth of entitlement programs such as Medicare by as much as $208 billion over five years and eliminating or reducing various education, training, highway and environmental programs to cut an additional $18 billion-plus next year.
Bush's plans for defense and Medicare drew criticism from both sides of the aisle in Congress. Coming in an election year and being the first to break the $3-trillion mark, the budget blueprint seemed destined to set off an extended battle.
Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), the top GOP member on the Senate Budget Committee, said the latest Bush budget, which is the president's last, is disappointing because it "does not accurately reflect" expected war costs.
"I am concerned that this proposal will make it too easy for Congress . . . to return to shadow budgeting and ignore costs we already know will occur," he said. Gregg praised Bush, however, for attempting to curb the growth of Medicare.
