Congress awaits closer look at Bush budget

Five weeks to the day into his presidency, President Bush will begin the hard work of governing when he presents his fiscal 2002 budget plan to the nation and a joint session of Congress Tuesday night.

Until this week, Bush has spoken only in broad generalities about his budget priorities, focusing on his campaign themes of increasing spending for education and defense programs. Although the budget he will formally submit to Congress Wednesday is not expected to go into great detail about funding levels for individual programs or accounts, it will make clear which departments will take hits in order to finance Bush's spending priorities while keeping to his stated goal of "slowing the rate of growth of the budget down."

After a meeting with Office of Management and Budget Director Mitchell Daniels late last week, Bush told reporters his budget also would include a nearly $3 billion increase for medical research. In addition, Bush has announced the plan would include $21 billion more next year for Medicare, a sum that includes money for a prescription drug block grant to help states create prescription drug plans for needy seniors.

Bush's budget is also expected to propose setting aside the projected Social Security and Medicare Hospital Insurance trust fund surpluses to pay down the publicly held debt and finance a Medicare prescription drug benefit.

But Bush has been largely silent about how he would reform those entitlements, which are hurtling toward instability as the baby boom generation retires. The budget he sends to Capitol Hill this week may do little more than hint at how he would fill in those blanks, according to observers.

House and Senate Republican leaders will get an early look at the budget Tuesday afternoon when they head to the White House for a briefing on the FY02 plan.

Then, Wednesday morning, to mark the formal submission of Bush's initial budget outline to Congress, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., Senate Budget Committee Chairman Pete Domenici, R-N.M., and House Budget Chairman Jim Nussle, R-Iowa, will be on hand for a press event to receive the President's budget.