Bush to announce $3 trillion budget

Washington, Feb 3: US President Bush will announce a three trillion dollar budget for 2009 on Monday, and it will include a eficit of 400 billion dollars for this year and the next.

According to news reports here, the Pentagon would get a 35 billion dollar increase to 515 billion dollars for some of its core programs, which amounts to about seven percent, with war costs additional. Twenty-one billion dollars would go to the US Department for Energy for nuclear weapons programs, while a 70 billion dollars is being lotted for the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It is expected that the budget for homeland security programs will increase by almost 11 percent, with a 19 percent increase for border ecurity and immigration enforcement efforts, including new money to secure the border with Mexico.

The programs will see almost 200 billion dollars in cuts over the next five years, about three times the savings proposed last year but ejected by Congress.

Much of the savings would come from freezing reimbursement rates for most healthcare providers for three years and from cutting payments to ospitals serving large numbers of the uninsured poor.

Health and Human Services Department funding would be cut by two billion dollars, while funding for the National Institutes of Health ould be frozen. The Food and Drug Administration would receive a six percent boost to 2.4 billion dollaras to ramp up food and drug safety fforts.

Education programs are expected to be frozen at 60 billion dollars with no increase to keep pace with inflation.

President Bush is also pushing to restore a 600 million dollar lawmakers cut from Reading First, which serves low-income children. Title I grants, the main source of federal funding for poor students, would rise about three percent. Special education would receive 11.3 illion dollars, a 330 million dollar increase.

ANI