Bush proposes record $3 trillion U.S. budget

BEIJING, Feb. 4 (Xinhuanet) -- President George W. Bush seeks to seal his legacy of promoting a strong defense to fight terrorism and tax cuts to spur the economy with America's first-ever 3 trillion U.S. dollar budget.

  Democrats, who control Congress, are pledging fierce opposition to Bush's final spending plan ¡X perhaps even until the next president takes office.

The 2009 spending plan sent to Congress on Monday will project huge budget deficits, around 400 billion dollars for this year and next and more than double the 2007 deficit of 163 billion dollars. But even those estimates could prove too low given the rapidly weakening economy and the total costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which Bush does not include in his request for the budget year beginning Oct. 1.

The 3 trillion dollars Bush's proposes spending in 2009 would be the first time that milestone has been reached. Bush also presided over the first budget to hit 2 trillion dollars, in 2002. It took the government nearly 200 years to reach the first 1 trillion dollar budget, which occurred in 1987 during the Reagan administration.

As in past years, Bush's biggest proposed increases are in national security. Defense spending is projected to rise by about 7 percent to 515 billion dollars and homeland security money by almost 11 percent, with a big gain for border security. Details on the budget were obtained through interviews with administration officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity until the budget's release.

The bulk of government programs for which Congress sets annual spending levels would remain essentially frozen at current levels. The president does shower extra money on some favored programs in education and to bolster inspections of imported food.

Bush's spending proposal would achieve sizable savings by slowing the growth in the major health programs ¡X Medicare for retirees and Medicaid for the poor. There the president will be asking for almost 200 billion dollars in cuts over five years, about three times the savings he proposed last year.

In advance, Democrats attacked the plan as a continuation of failed policies that have seen the national debt explode under Bush; projected surpluses of 5.6 trillion dollars wiped out; and huge deficits take their place, reflecting weaker revenues from the 2001 recession, the terrorism fight, and, Democrats contend, Bush's costly 1.3 trillion dollar first-term tax cuts.

(Agencies)