Bush Proposes Billions More For Homeland Security

Mar 1, 2004 12:00 PM

President Bush has sent Congress a $2.4 trillion election-year budget featuring big increases for defense and Homeland security. The president declared that his spending blueprint advances his three highest priorities — winning the war on terror, strengthening Homeland defenses and boosting the economic recovery.

“Our nation remains at war,” Bush said in his budget message.

Bush would boost military spending by 7 percent in 2005, but that does not include the money needed to keep troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Homeland security would receive a nearly 10 percent boost, including an 11 percent increase in FBI funding to support increased counterterrorism activities.

The 9.7 percent increase in Homeland security funding would bring the 2005 budget to more than $30 billion — an increase of more than 2 percent over 2004 levels. But Democrats say the proposed increase in spending may be undermined by cuts to other law enforcement programs.

Four Senators said that it's disingenuous to tout increases in Homeland security spending while at the same time trying to cut programs like the Community Oriented Policing Services, or COPS, which provides grants to state and local authorities for hiring more police officers.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York complained that while the budget offers more money to police departments for anti-terror efforts, it “cuts the money that is needed on the everyday side.”

The 2005 budget proposes cutting COPS from $481.9 million to $97 million. The administration's proposed budget for fiscal year 2005 includes wide-ranging increases in spending for aviation security, Coast Guard improvements, and cities at high risk of attacks.

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