| Texas reaps big haul in Bush budget State's share would cover range of work 04/10/2001 By Michelle Mittelstadt / The Dallas Morning News
WASHINGTON – President Bush's first budget, which tips the scales at upward of 6 pounds, sketches the new administration's national spending priorities with a broad brush. But a careful scan of the more than 1,500 pages issued Monday also spells the tale of billions of dollars in proposed spending that would benefit Texas.
There's $2 billion that the administration is seeking next year to continue construction of the space station, much of which is being developed at the Johnson Space Center near Houston. There's $204 million for Army Corps of Engineers water projects in Texas, including $1 million for maintenance and operation of a Trinity River project. And there's the promise of a large chunk of the $88 million requested by the Transportation Department to hire 80 new inspectors now that U.S. roadways will be open to Mexican trucks.
Nestled within the $1.96 trillion budget are line items that hold the promise of major money for Texas, which received $92 billion in grants, salaries and direct payments from the federal government last year.
The document, which marks the first step in the annual ritual by which the administration and Congress hash out their differing spending priorities, also is notable for what it doesn't contain. It proposes the outright elimination of certain programs – such as a $30 million wool and mohair subsidies program popular in West Texas – or cuts to others.
Because this is the new president's first budget, it also offers a road map of where his spending priorities diverge from his predecessor's.
School security
Instead of grants to police departments for officers on the beat, the administration wants Congress to provide $180 million for schools to hire 1,500 officers to reduce school violence.
With the Justice Department budget, the administration wants to nip and tuck some existing programs to fund its key priorities: nearly $1 billion for new prison space; $240 million to improve the Immigration and Naturalization Service; and $154 million to increase gun prosecutions and keep weapons out of children's hands.
To pay for those priorities, the administration is proposing slashing by $1 billion the Justice Department's grants to states and local jurisdictions. The Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program falls within that portfolio. Texas law enforcement agencies have hired 5,348 officers through the federal program.
Also under the Justice umbrella is a program that reimburses Texas and several other states that incarcerate large numbers of undocumented immigrants convicted of crimes, which would be reduced by $300 million next year.
The Justice budget does earmark $75 million to hire 570 new Border Patrol agents next year, with the agents targeted for Texas, Arizona and California. It also includes $50 million in grants for Southwest border counties struggling with an explosion of federal drug cases. The INS, which would see its budget increase 10 percent to $5.5 billion, would gain $178 million more next year for border control.
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, praised Mr. Bush for his border focus. "Attention to the border is essential," she said. "President Bush has put resources into the border that we have lacked in previous presidential budgets."
Just as Republicans praised the new president's budget, congressional Democrats found fault with the Republican administration's spending priorities.
"People are concerned that vital programs needed to improve the lives of all Americans have been drastically reduced, scaled back or cut altogether," said Rep. Ken Bentsen, D-Houston.
He said that the $3.9 billion earmarked for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers flood control and navigation programs is a reduction of $451 million – a complaint echoed elsewhere.
While welcoming the administration's decision to fund $2.9 million for the Johnson Creek flood control project in Arlington, Rep. Martin Frost, D-Dallas, said: "We need to get $6 million for the Corps of Engineers to finish the buyouts."
Critics' plans
Rep. Henry Bonilla, the San Antonio Republican who is a defender of wool and mohair subsidies, will seek to revive the program if he considers it essential, his spokeswoman said Monday. "Since the elimination of the Wool Act, our nation has lost approximately 40 percent of our sheep producers," said spokeswoman Taryn Fritz. "This number is startling, especially at a time when imports in this industry have more than doubled."
In some areas, the budget is silent.
Defense contractors, who make up a key industrial sector for North Texas, received no hint in the budget submission about the future of their programs. Because Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is in the midst of a strategic defense review, the administration did not issue budget breakdowns for specific weapons programs. So the funding levels for the V-22 the F-22 aircraft remain unknown.
The $310.5 billion Pentagon budget does propose some specifics, however, including a 4.6 percent pay raise for military personnel and $1 billion in enlistment, retention and quality of life improvements.
Broadly, the federal budget includes many earmarks that could benefit Texas, including:
• A piece of the $1.1 billion in impact aid proposed for school districts that educate large numbers of children from military families, such as those surrounding Fort Hood in Central Texas and Fort Bliss in El Paso.
• $460 million in grants to states offering bilingual and immigrant education.
• $100 million to reduce INS backlogs in processing citizenship, green card and other applications in the first year of a five-year, $500 million initiative proposed by Mr. Bush.
• $56 million in Transportation Department grants to states for border safety inspection facilities.
• Nearly $43 million in construction for the Border Patrol, including nearly $10 million for projects in Laredo and Alpine.
• $31 million for INS detention construction, including $14 million to build 200-bed dormitories at detention facilities in El Paso and Port Isabel.
• $20 million in Agriculture Department funding for water and wastewater improvement programs in colonias along the border.
Staff writer Christopher Lee contributed to this report.
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