Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Nevada officials dissect Bush’s proposed cuts

WASHINGTON -- Buried in the eclectic mix of 154 programs that President Bush asked Congress to scrap or scale back are federal medical care, education and small business programs that operate in Nevada.

Bush made the proposals in an effort to trim waste and dent the deficit as part of the $2.57 trillion budget request he sent to lawmakers Feb. 7. The programs vary widely, from farm subsidies to rail rehabilitation and hydropower research. Many are found in the Education Department. The programs are not "getting results" or are duplicative, Bush said.

"Taxpayer dollars must be spent wisely, or not at all," Bush said in his State of the Union address.

But Congress will have the final say on that. Lawmakers are poring over the proposed cuts and, as always, are expected to reject many of them to protect money that flows to their districts. Of the 154 programs, Bush has unsuccessfully asked Congress to kill or reduce 114 of them before.

"The president is committed to deficit reduction, and that's a good thing," Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., said. "What I like about the budget is that we should be measuring what is working and what is not working. We need to look at the entire budget that way."

Ensign said he had not yet taken a hard look at which proposed cuts he would advocate or oppose. But he said that at first glance he generally supports farm subsidy cuts but opposes vocational education cuts. Bush has proposed cuts that would amount to about $10 million a year less for vocational education in Nevada.

There is no early estimate of how much money Nevada would stand to lose if all the Bush proposals were enacted. Some of the programs send no money to Nevada at all.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said some of Bush's cuts hurt Nevada families. He, too, objects specifically to cuts to vocational education programs as well as to cuts in college financing programs and literacy programs.

"It is a budget of wrong choices and wrong priorities," Reid said.

Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., slammed Bush's plan to eliminate several Small Business Administration loan programs. She and several other Democrats held a press conference today to denounce the cuts.

"The No. 1 problem facing small businesses in Las Vegas and across the nation is accessing affordable capital," Berkley said in a statement.

On Bush's chopping block: the SBA's Microloan Program, which offers up to $35,000 to new and growing small businesses. It has loaned about $1.5 million in Nevada since 1994 to about 120 entrepreneurs, said Anna Siefert, operating manager of the nonprofit program manager Nevada Microenterprise Initiative.

From Siefert's perspective the program has been wildly successful, offering startup money to enterprising citizens who couldn't get bank loans but have now launched businesses ranging from a dog-grooming operation to an online supplier of plus-size women's clothing.

As part of the program, Siefert's group offers free technical advice and business training to loan recipients -- sometimes daily -- to assure success, she said. Nearly all the businesses are paying back the loans, she said.

"I don't understand why they would cut this," Siefert said. "This program works. I see it every day through the eyes of the little people. They will never have this kind of opportunity without us."

Among the other programs Bush aims to eliminate:

A block grant program managed by the Centers for Disease Control that annually sends about $130 million to the states, including $528,000 to Nevada for nurses in the state's under-served 15 rural counties. The program is vital to the counties and the state is "monitoring" its options if the program were ever cut, said Martha Framsted, Nevada Health Division spokeswoman.

It's possible money could be made available for states as part of other grant programs, said CDC spokeswoman Kathy Harben.

"The HHS and the administration were facing tough choices in fiscal year 2006," Harben said. "We are grateful that we're not seeing an across-the-board cut."

A 20-year-old Department of Health and Human Services program aimed at improving emergency medical services for children that received $20 million last year, including nearly $100,000 that went to Nevada.

Another HHS program, designed to ensure that states screen the hearing of newborns. The program, begun 2001, dramatically increased the percentage of screened babies in Nevada to about 95 percent, although exact figures prior to 2001 were not available, Framsted said. The state got $75,430 for the program last year.

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