www.nytimes.com/2005/02/07/politics/07budget.html
Doug Mills/The New York Times Budget committee staff workers unload copies of the The Budget of the United States Government as Senate staff memebers pick up their copies as it arrives on Capitol Hill, Monday, Feb.
White House officials said the budget advanced his goal of cutting the deficit, which hit a record last year. "We are being tight," Vice President Dick Cheney said on "Fox News Sunday." "This is the tightest budget that has been submitted since we got here." The proposals to increase charges to veterans face stiff opposition from veterans organizations, Democratic members of Congress and some Republicans. Mr Cheney said the White House had judiciously identified scores of domestic programs to be cut or eliminated. "It's not something we've done with a meat ax, nor are we suddenly turning our backs on the most needy people in our society." The proposals could provoke months of furious debate on Capitol Hill. Democrats have already indicated that they are poised to pounce on any sign that the Bush administration is stinting on veterans' benefits. Health care accounts for almost all of the agency's discretionary spending. Mr Bush is seeking an increase of 27 percent, or $880 million, in such spending. The president would increase the co-payment for a month's supply of a prescription drug to $15, from the current $7. The administration says the co-payment and the $250 "user fee" would apply mainly to veterans in lower-priority categories, who have higher incomes and do not have service-related disabilities. The government had no immediate estimate of how many veterans would be affected if the user fee and co-payment proposals were adopted. But veterans' groups said that hundreds of thousands of people would end up paying more and that many would be affected by both changes. Richard B Fuller, legislative director of the Paralyzed Veterans of America, said: "The proposed increase in health spending is not sufficient at a time when the number of patients is increasing and there has been a huge increase in health care costs. The enrollment fee is a health care tax, designed to raise revenue and to discourage people from enrolling." Mr Fuller added that the budget would force veterans hospitals and clinics to limit services. "We are already seeing an increase in waiting lists, even for some Iraq veterans," he said. In Michigan, for example, thousands of veterans are on waiting lists for medical services, and some reservists returning from Iraq say they have been unable to obtain the care they were promised. But Cynthia R Church, a spokeswoman for the Department of Veterans Affairs, defended the administration's record. "Our budget increase from 2001 to 2005 for health care alone has been more than 40 percent," Ms Church said. The department expects to care for five million people at its hospitals and clinics this year. Under the new budget, the agency will focus on what officials describe as their "core constituency," including veterans with service-related disabilities or low incomes.
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