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 It doesn't matter which party is in control on Capitol Hill; Bush's roster of budget cuts
-- including many accounts heavily earmarked with lawmakers' pet projects
-- is invariably dead on arrival.
That hasn't stopped Bush, who has a roster of 151 programs to kill or cut back when he submits his budget on Monday. The $18 billion in savings is 50 percent more than last year's list.
"Next week, I'll send you a budget that terminates or substantially reduces 151 wasteful or bloated programs," Bush said in his State of the Union address on Monday.
Bush knows the cuts are doomed, but a worsening deficit picture is forcing him to issue ever more unrealistic cuts in order to be able to meet his promise to balance the budget in four years. Even though there's no chance the Democratic-controlled Congress will implement the cuts, he gets to assume they're enacted when he puts together his budget.
The roster of programs facing the guillotine is a closely-held secret at the White House budget shop. But it's hardly guesswork as to most of what's on the list. Most of the cuts have been tried before, only to be rejected by Congress, whether controlled by Republicans or Democrats.
The Commodity Supplemental Food Program, which provides nutritionally balanced boxes of food to about a half-million mostly elderly poor people each month, faces elimination of its $140 million budget. It's been targeted for elimination twice before. Last year, Democrats awarded the program a 30 percent budget increase.
The president also will likely target again the $654 million budget for community services block grants, which provide money to community action groups that help the poor.
Bush's plan to roll back subsidies for Amtrak, a favorite of lawmakers whose districts and states are served by the money-losing passenger railroad, face rejection yet again.
Last year, Bush for the first time sought $134 million in cuts to grants programs giving poor, unemployed senior citizens part-time community service work. Congress instead provided a $38 million increase.
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 This will be the fourth consecutive year that Bush has sent a roster of program terminations and cuts to Capitol Hill. He had greatest success when Republicans controlling Congress accepted $6.5 billion worth of cuts, including grants for drug-free school programs, literacy programs and grants to local law enforcement agencies.
The cuts may be politically unrealistic, but they do serve a purpose for the president. He has forced Congress, by and large, to live within his budget cap for the one-third of the budget passed each year by Congress. And every dollar used by lawmakers to fill in Bush's budget cuts is a dollar that can't be used for other pet programs favored by Democrats.
This year, Bush's cuts have to be even deeper to help the administration be able to predict a balanced budget by 2012. The slowdown in the economy has weakened tax revenue estimates, which requires the White House to tamp down spending estimates in order to be able to display balance.
Capitol Hill veterans acknowledge that it's unlikely a Congress controlled by a rival party will pass the cuts.
"Obviously, the likelihood of that happening is slim, but it's worth trying," said Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, top Republican on the Budget Committee.
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On the Net:
White House: http://www.whitehouse.gov/
[Associated
Press; By ANDREW TAYLOR]
Copyright 2007 The Associated
Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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