US Senate panel cuts military, foreign aid funds

Washington, June 23 : A Senate panel today defied President George W Bush by voting to cut nearly 11.5 billion dollars from the administration's budget requests for the Pentagon and foreign aid and shift that money to domestic programmes.

The Senate Appropriations Committee voted 15-13, along party lines, on the plan to carve up nearly 873 billion dollarsin funds for an array of government programs in the fiscal year starting on October 1.

A new focus on adding funds for social programmes comes during an election year in which many moderate Republicans fear voter backlash following domestic spending cuts. But the House of Representatives might not go along.

Democrats, objecting to overall Republican priorities that they say are inadequate to meet the nation's needs, opposed the funding allocations.

As a result of the committee vote, the Senate later this year will debate a fiscal 2007 defense spending bill that will spend no more than 414.5 billion dollars. While that would be a 3.8 per cent increase from this year's spending, it is about billion less than Bush requested in February.

The White House is likely to threaten to veto such a bill.

Last week, after the House of Representatives shifted 4 billion dollars from the Pentagon's budget to non-defense spending, the White House threatened to veto a final bill if it had deeper cuts.

The committee's cuts probably would not have a significant effect on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan if the government continues to fund them primarily through separate emergency bills.

For foreign aid, the Senate would cut about 2.4 billion dollars from Bush's request.

Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Thad Cochran, a Mississippi Republican, defended the shift in funds noting the ''scarce amount of resources'' overall this year.

But Robert Byrd of West Virginia, the senior Democrat on the committee, called it a ''rob-Peter-to-pay-Paul maneuver.'' He said the Pentagon would later recapture its lost funds in an emergency spending bill.

Byrd said the House likely will not go along with the higher spending level for domestic programmmes.

Under the Senate committee's plan, about 5 billion dollars of the shifted funds would go to social programs. The rest would be spread among several agencies.

Reuters