Reaction Of Sen. Patrick Leahy
To The White House Budget For Fiscal Year 2003
(Including Budget Highlights)
Feb. 4, 2002

GENERAL COMMENTS OF SENATOR PATRICK LEAHY:

"This blueprint is really the tale of two budgets. The President has properly emphasized the budget to combat terrorism, but the domestic budget is riddled with many opportunistic cuts, motivated by ideology and special interests, that would hurt rural economic development, end the program to put more cops on the street, and weaken enforcement of clean air and clean water laws.

"I welcome the overdue acknowledgment of the security problems that we face on the Northern Border. This budget request is a good first effort on the part of the Administration, but we must make sure these added resources are focused strongly enough on the Northern Border, where the lines are longest and the need is greatest."

President Bush Monday sent Congress a $2.13 trillion budget that would provide billions of dollars in new spending for two top priorities -- the war on terrorism and homeland security – but would squeeze much of budget for domestic programs.

The President proposes spending $2.13 trillion for the 2003 budget year, a 3.7 percent increase from this year's spending. But that overall increase masks huge differences among programs. Defense is projected to receive a $48 billion boost, the biggest increase in two decades, and spending for homeland security would nearly double to $37.7 billion.

As a result of the slumping economy and the tax cuts that were enacted last year, the budget projects a deficit for the current year of $106 billion, breaking a string of four straight years of surpluses, a feat last accomplished 70 years ago. For the 2003 budget, the President projects more tax cuts and a deficit of $80 billion.

The President's budget purports to include an additional $73.5 bill for a new farm bill, but the numbers do not add up. A large portion of the "increase" will go to restore cuts the budget makes in existing programs:

The President pays for improvements in the farm safety net by reducing current benefits. The budget proposes a lowering of commodity marketing assistance loan rates, reducing loan deficiency payments for farmers by as much as $20 to $25 billion over 10 years;

Funding for rural development programs is cut by more than $3.5 billion annually to cover additional "increases;"

The budget zeros-out funding for the Global Food for Education Initiative ($300 million annually), sponsored by Leahy and other leaders, implementing an idea forged by former Senators Bob Dole and George McGovern, which helps other nations provide impoverished schoolchildren with basic meals;

The budget would cut funding for agricultural research programs by more than $200 million annually;

The budget cuts in half funding for state and private forestry initiatives.

The President’s budget includes several budget cuts and policy suggestions that would hurt state and local law enforcement efforts. The budget would:

Eliminate the highly successful COPS Hiring and COPS School Resource Officers Programs that were funded at $330 million this year, including $180 million for school resource officers programs. From the inception of the COPS program in 1995, to Oct. 16, 2001, the State of Vermont has received a total of $22,472,003.66 in funding from all COPS Programs, enabling local communities and the state police to hire a total of 219 community policing officers in Vermont.

Level-fund Leahy’s Bulletproof Vest Partnership Grant Program at $25,444,000, even though Congress recently authorized $50 million for FY 2003 for the successful program that protects the lives of local and state law enforcement officers.

Cut $10 million from the Boys and Girls Club grant program.

Level-fund Leahy’s Rural Domestic Violence and Child Abuse Enforcement Assistance Grants at $40 million nationwide.

Cut $100 million from state and local law enforcement funds by consolidating the Local Law Enforcement Block Grant Program and the Byrne Formula Grants Program into a new Justice Assistance Grant Program for state and local law enforcement agencies.

Cut nearly $50 million for juvenile justice programs, dropping from $286.4 million in 2002 to $238.3 million in 2003.

The Senate Judiciary Committee’s oversight hearings last year, to be resumed this year, revealed that the FBI needs to update its computer systems, overhaul its internal security systems and re-focus its attention on detecting and preventing terrorist attacks. Leahy, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee – which has jurisdiction over the Justice Department and the FBI – supports the increase in the FBI's budget but noted that the increases will come with increased oversight to make sure the money is being spent where it will be most effective.

Leahy applauded the $400 million requested by the White House to be spent in block grants to the states to improve the voting process, but he said he is concerned that no additional resources are being given to the Civil Rights Division to enforce the voting rights or civil rights laws. He noted that, although the budget calls for an increase of $2.8 million to address hate crimes, the funds are directed to the Office of Justice Programs, not to prosecutors’ offices to investigate and prosecute those crimes.

The Northern Border provisions added by Leahy to the anti-terrorism bill, enacted last October, authorize a tripling of border security on the U.S.-Canada boundary. Efforts since then to begin implementing Leahy’s Northern Border provisions have originated in Congress and have met resistance from the White House. The President’s new budget plan is the first movement by the Administration toward those goals. The budget calls for a $1.2 billion increase for INS law enforcement efforts, from $4.1 billion in 2002 to $5.3 billion in 2003. That increase would more than double the number of Border Patrol agents and INS inspectors. In his budget, the President has also said that new hiring should focus particularly on the Northern Border.

The President also proposes a $300 million increase in the Customs budget for staffing and technology, but there is no mention of the Northern Border or any direction to the agency on where to deploy the new staff.

In order to pay for increases in some programs, other programs would be level-funded or face reductions. Specifically, local communities throughout Vermont continue to struggle to balance their own education budgets while paying for the rising costs of special education. While the President's budget proposal does include an increase in special education funding, it is far less that what is needed in order to live up to the federal government’s promise to pay 40 percent of the costs of special education.

In its proposed environmental budget, the Administration offers a future of corporate-friendly cost-benefit analyses that largely favor industry's profits over individuals' and communities’ health.

Of special concern are the budget announcements surrounding federal clean air programs, clean water programs, pesticide programs and overall federal enforcement of environmental and public health laws. For example, the EPA budget document touts air pollution policies based on "market-based" approaches coupled with reduced federal regulation. Yet the document neglects to mention that the "market-based" approaches to clean air have been successes because of --

not in spite of -- strong federal regulations called for in the Clean Air Act.

The Administration is again seeking cuts in EPA's environmental enforcement funding, ostensibly to send more funds to states. Leahy believes EPA should strengthen its partnership with states, but he said doing so while simultaneously weakening federal enforcement is a transparent attempt to weaken the laws that maintain clean air and water.

Finally, despite Administration announcements that it will focus on clean water and watershed initiatives, the decreases or flat-funding that it seeks in national clean water initiatives belie its statements about helping states cope with water quality issues. With states hard-hit by the economic downturn, they will be disappointed that their needs for federal help with water quality funding are ignored.

Despite the economic recession, the Administration seeks deep cuts in programs that are dedicated to protecting the most vulnerable populations. The Administration proposes to cut $400 million from public housing, to level-fund homeless assistance grants, and to carve out the little increase it gave to the HOME program for homeownership activities. These cuts would hurt states like Vermont, where the cost of housing, and consequently the number of homeless families, have been rising at alarming rates. These programs often mean the difference between a night on the street and a roof overhead for many Vermont families.

The President's budget maintains the FY02 level of funding at $1.4 billion in regular funds and $300 million in contingency funds. But Leahy said Vermonters should be concerned that new language in the President's proposal asks a federal agency to make allocations "more equitable" by adopting a new allocation formula based solely on low-income homes' energy expenditure data. The current formula for LIHEAP was developed to specifically recognize the severe and deadly weather that consistently hits the Northeast and Midwest each winter. Any change in this formula would mean that much-needed funds traditionally sent to the Northeast and Midwest would go to states in the South and West.

The budget's net funding increase for nutrition is less than the Senate Farm Bill ($4.4 billion net increase in the President's budget versus $6.2 billion net increase in the Senate Farm Bill). Unstated in the Womens, Infants and Children (WIC) budget request are the facts that:

The FY 2002 budget understated the WIC participation level, and the President still has not requested supplemental funding for to ensure benefits are there for WIC recipients.

The budget may still understate the number of eligible WIC participants (the President cited 8 million WIC participants in his radio address 2 weeks ago, but the budget assumes only 7.8 million participants).

The new budget plan would kill the low-cost WIC Farmers Market Nutrition Program. This program, authored by Leahy, currently helps 10,000 Vermonters who shop at 35 Vermont farmers’ markets, supplied by 200 Vermont producers.

The budget plan would kill the low-cost Senior Farmers Market Nutrition Program, also authored by Leahy, which helps 1000 senior households in Vermont.

The Food Stamp reforms proposed by the President are a mixed bag. Although the President's budget restores food stamps for legal immigrants, it relies on savings from cuts in other areas that are troubling. The "simplification" proposals will result in benefit cuts for many seniors and people with disabilities who have high medical expenses, and the "quality control" reforms run contrary to the reforms proposed in both the House and Senate farm bills.

The President’s budget calls for the elimination of two small business programs that have been especially useful in Vermont: the One-Stop-Capital Shop program and the Program for Reinvestment in Microentrepreneurs (PRIME). It also would drastically cut the Manufacturing Extension Partnership program from $106.5 million in 2002 to $13.5 million in 2003, effectively gutting this program and its highly successful outreach programs in Vermont.

The President calls for the break-up of Amtrak without offering a comprehensive alternative national rail transportation plan. The President does not restore funding to the Federal Highway Trust Fund, which is $9 billion short this year – deficits that will leave Vermont highway projects $32.2 million in the hole next year. And his budget cuts direct funding for the Essential Air Service program that brings US Airways service to the Rutland State Airport. Without this program, air passenger service to Vermont’s second-largest city may end.

FOREIGN OPERATIONS BUDGET HIGHLIGHTS

COMMENT from Sen. Patrick Leahy, chairman, Senate Foreign Operations Subcommittee (of the Senate Appropriations Committee):

"For our country -- the richest and most powerful on earth -- health and development help for the poorest of the poor is both a moral obligation and a security obligation. The President’s budget ignores this piece of the anti-terrorism puzzle."

Global Health and Education. Flat-lines funding for global health and education programs at a time when there is broad recognition that improving health and education in poor countries is essential to combating poverty and the causes of terrorism and conflict. The budget provides an increase of only $15 million for basic education programs – a pittance of what is needed. Moreover, while funding for HIV/AIDS is moderately increased, it is a result of cuts in other programs for infectious diseases, child survival maternal health, and vulnerable children.

Family Planning. Cuts funding for both USAID and UNFPA voluntary family planning programs.

Development Assistance. Level-funds programs to support agriculture, create jobs, build democracy, enhance education, protect the environment, promote trade, investment, and energy development as well as other long-term programs to advance economic growth.

Counter-drug Assistance. Increases by $106 million funding for counter-drug programs, including $439 million for Colombia – a $50 million increase above FY 2002. It also provides an additional $98 million for counter-insurgency training and equipment for the Colombian Army, the first time that the line separating counter-insurgency from counter-drug assistance has been crossed in U.S. military aid to Colombia. COMMENT from Sen. Patrick Leahy: "For the first time, the Administration is proposing to cross the line from counter-narcotics to counter-insurgency. Now, as a matter of our national policy, this is no longer about stopping drugs but about fighting the guerrillas."

Peace Corps. Increases funding for Peace Corps from $275 million in FY2002 to $320 million in FY2003.

Export Assistance. Cuts export promotion programs by $190 million (Export-Import Bank, Overseas Private Investment Corp., Trade and Development Agency).

Disaster and Refugee Assistance. Level-funds these programs that assist the world’s poorest people when they are most vulnerable.

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