Bush budget cuts veterans health care in 2009

February 13, 2007
Bush budget cuts veterans health care in 2009

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush administration's budget assumes cuts to veterans' health care two years from now -- even as badly wounded troops returning from Iraq could overwhelm the system.

Bush is using the cuts, critics say, to help fulfill his pledge to balance the budget by 2012.
But even administration allies say the numbers are not real and are being used to make the overall budget picture look better.

After an increase sought for next year, the Bush budget would turn current trends on their head. Even though the cost of providing medical care to veterans has been growing rapidly -- by more than 10 percent in many years -- White House budget documents assume consecutive cutbacks in 2009 and 2010 and a freeze thereafter.

Bush Proposes Steep Cut to PBS Funding

February 5, 2007
Bush Proposes Steep Cut toPBS Funding

President Bush is reopening the fight over government support of public television, unveiling a
2007 government fiscal year budget that would cut federal funding for the Corporation for
Public Broadcasting by nearly 25 percent.

There was some confusion on how to tally the exact cut, but public TV and congressional sources
said at least $114 million of the $460 million CPB budget for the fiscal year that starts in
October would be cut. The Association of Public Television Stations said the total impact could be
$145 million when cuts in related programs are added, including a program to upgrade radio station
satellite facilities.

Bush Seeks Big Medicare and Medicaid Saving

February 2, 2007
Bush Seeks Big Medicare and Medicaid Saving

WASHINGTON, Feb. 1 — President Bush will ask Congress in his budget next week to squeeze more than $70 billion of savings from Medicare and Medicaid over the next five years, administration officials and health care lobbyists said Thursday.

Mr. Bush is also expected to propose changes in the Children's Health Insurance Program to sharpen its focus on low-income families. The changes could reduce federal payments to states that cover children with family incomes exceeding twice the poverty level. Under federal guidelines, a family of four is considered poor if its annual income is less than $20,650.

One measure of the political difficulty facing the president's plan for Medicare and Medicaid is that he sought $20 billion less in savings from the two programs last year, when Republicans controlled Congress, and few of those proposals were adopted.