The AFT is calling on Congress to reject devastating cuts contained in President Bush's latest budget proposal. The budget plan, delivered to Capitol Hill this week, would impose draconian cuts on students, the elderly, the poor and the disabled.

Coming less than a week after President Bush's State of the Union message and his call for a national competitiveness initiative, the budget proposal exposes the "empty rhetoric" surrounding the administration's so-called national priorities, AFT president Edward J. McElroy said in a statement. "This is not the first time President Bush has pledged federal assistance for those in need only to later renege on his promises."

The president's FY2007 budget calls for a $2.1 billion reduction in federal education funding—the largest cut in the 26-year history of the Education Department. The Bush budget falls $15.4 billion short of funding levels Congress authorized for the No Child Left Behind Act, and the cumulative funding shortfall for NCLB would rise to $55.7 billion. "Modest proposed increases for Title I, IDEA, math and science instruction, and a $100 million voucher program would be more than offset by the elimination of 42 programs," according to a new report prepared by the minority staff of one Senate appropriations subcommittee. Among the programs slated to be axed are all vocational and technical education programs, education technology state grants, GEAR UP, Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities State Grants, TRIO Talent Search and Upward Bound.

"The White House’s budget ax slashes scores of beneficial education programs that are helping make a real difference in closing the achievement gap," McElroy warned, and the totals tell only part of the story."If [President Bush's] abysmally low funding level is approved, 29 states would lose Title I funding and another seven would see no increase," McElroy warned.

The Bush budget also hammers student loans yet again. Despite rising tuition costs, the proposal freezes the maximum Pell grant at $4,050 for the fourth year in a row and cuts $660 million from the Perkins College Loan Program. The Perkins reduction means that more than 460,000 low- and middle-income students will be denied low-cost loans for college, according to a budget analysis prepared for Democrats on the House Education and the Workforce Committee. "Even as the President talks about the importance of making American students more competitive in math and science, his student loan cuts are likely to prevent students from affording higher education in those and other fields," McElroy said.

And the pain isn't limited to education. Vital domestic programs such as Medicare also take big hits under the Bush plan. "It is unconscionable that the President wants to make severe cuts in the Medicare program, which will harm thousands of elderly Americans by cutting an important lifeline to healthcare," McElroy said. "The cuts will also reduce reimbursements to hospitals, affecting healthcare professionals and their patients nationwide. Congress cannot allow this to happen."

February 9, 2006