President to send Congress 'new realities' budget today

WASHINGTON -- President Bush will send Congress a $2.12 trillion spending plan today that seeks to recognize the "new realities" confronting the nation since Sept. 11. It proposes the biggest jump in defense spending in two decades and a record increase in money devoted to making Americans more secure at home.

The budget tries to revive an anti-recession stimulus package that stalled late last year in the Senate. It also seeks billions of dollars more in future years to make permanent the biggest economic victory of Bush's first year in office, a sweeping, across-the-board tax cut.

But the spending plan for the 2003 budget year must face the new realities of a reduced financial situation -- $4 trillion in disappearing surpluses because of the recession.

Democrats vow fight

To do that, Bush wants to squeeze government programs from highway construction to job training and environmental projects.

Congressional Democrats are pledging a fight to restore spending for their priorities and to oppose tax breaks in Bush's stimulus package for the wealthy and corporations.

"There are a lot of us who question whether or not we really need to have a major stimulus package. Many people think we're coming out of this recession," Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., said Sunday on CNN's "Late Edition."

White House budget director Mitchell Daniels said Bush was prepared to negotiate the elements of a stimulus package and the overall budget as long as it did not compromise his top goals.

"There's certainly no give in terms of doing what it takes to safeguard America and to win the war against terror," Daniels said on "Fox News Sunday." "These are sort of non-negotiable items ... and the president's going to do what it takes."

In the message to accompany his budget, Bush said his spending plan "recognizes the new realities confronting our nation. ... It is a plan to fight a war we did not seek, but a war we are determined to win."

Bush's budget asks Congress to increase defense spending to $379 billion in 2003. That is an increase of $48 billion, or 14.5 percent, making it the biggest one-year jump in defense since 1982 under Ronald Reagan.

Overall, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press, the president's 2003 budget seeks to spend $2.12 trillion for the 2003 budget year beginning Oct. 1 -- a 3.4 percent increase from projected spending this year of $2.05 trillion.

The current 2002 budget represents the first time government outlays will top the $2 trillion mark. That milestone is occurring just 15 years after the government recorded its first $1 trillion budget in 1987.

The current year's budget represents a 10.2 percent jump in overall spending from 2001. To restrain spending to a proposed 3.4 percent increase next year while still boosting defense and security, Bush is asking Congress to cut a number of popular programs.

Those reductions include trimming $9 billion from highway programs, cuts to a popular youth job training program and a freeze on new water projects built by the Army Corps of Engineers.

Those steps will make room for the defense increase and a near doubling of spending devoted to homeland security, to $37.7 billion in 2003.

Campaign promise delayed

The shrinking of the projected surplus by $4 trillion has forced the administration to delay one of Bush's major campaign planks -- bolstering Social Security by allowing workers to set up individual investment accounts.

Also set aside for now is Bush's goal from his first budget of paying off $2 trillion of the national debt as a way of improving the government's balance sheet before the wave of baby boomer retirements begins at the of the decade.

The spending document projects that the government will return to deficits this year.

The document projects red ink of $106 billion in the current year, $80 billion for the 2003 budget and a $14 billion deficit in 2004, before returning to the black.

On taxes, Bush is seeking additional relief for corporations and individuals as part of his stimulus package and $344 billion to extend last year's $1.35 trillion, 10-year tax cut. The new money will keep the cut, due to expire after 2010, in place for two more years.