President's Budget Would Cut Deeply Into Important Public Services and Adversely Affect States
The President's 2009 budget would provide some $20.5 billion less for domestic discretionary programs outside of homeland security -- a broad category of programs that includes everything from child care to environmental protection to medical research -- than the 2008 level, adjusted for inflation.
The budget calls for reductions in a broad range of services, including some areas that have seen sizable cuts in recent years. For example, the budget would cut child care, environmental protection, and job training -- all areas for which funding in 2008 is well below funding earlier in the decade, after adjusting for inflation.