Demagogue

This is going to be fun-- a little something for everyone to hate. Screw the poor, screw the sick and poor, screw the children and screw the vets just so the wealthiest Americans can keep their tax cut. Brilliant.

[P]rograms set for cuts, the AP has learned, include the Army Corps of Engineers, whose dam and other waterway projects are extremely popular in Congress; the Energy Department; and a number of health programs under the Health and Human Services Department.

About one-third of the programs being targeted for elimination are in the Education Department, including federal grant programs for local schools in such areas as vocational education, supporting drug-free schools and Even Start, a $225 million literacy program.

The administration also will seek to restrain growth in mandatory spending, primarily by trimming costs in Medicaid, the joint program with states that pays the cost of poor people's health care.

Show the troops a little extra love too...

President Bush's budget would more than double many veterans' co-payment for prescription drugs and would require some to pay $250 a year to use government health care, administration officials said Sunday.
...
Veterans' groups attacked the proposals. Richard 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. It will not cover the need. The enrollment fee is a health care tax designed to raise revenue and to discourage people from enrolling." Fuller said 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.

I don't know why Republicans don't just rename veteran benefits programs "welfare" or "special rights" and cut them entirely.