Senators hope to ease cuts in budget
By Susan Roth
Advertiser Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON — President Bush's proposed budget for fiscal 2003 would cut money for many Hawaiian programs, but Hawai'i's U. S. senators are not panicking.
Sens. Dan Inouye and Daniel Akaka stressed that the president's budget, released Monday, is a blueprint that always changes as it moves through the labyrinthine congressional appropriations process.
By the end of the process, they often have been able to get more money for Hawai'i than the president proposed. Although they are concerned about potential budget cuts, they say the Bush budget would cut programs all over the country, and in the big picture Hawai'i came out relatively well.
Washington budget analysts say they expect the budget to grow significantly because it's an election year and because Congress has eliminated all spending caps enacted during the Clinton years.
"All procedural limits are gone," budget analyst Stanley Collender said last week. Members of Congress "have the opportunity to get their spending in place now. Restraint won't happen in an election year."
In military construction, Bush proposed about $203 million for Hawai'i projects in fiscal 2003. For fiscal year 2002, which began Oct. 1, Congress approved nearly $383 million for military construction in the state.
But Inouye pointed out that the president's budget would cut military construction money substantially throughout the country. Bush proposed spending $4.8 billion while Congress approved $6.6 billion for fiscal 2002.
"There's a big cutback in military construction funding, but Hawai'i is getting a large share," Inouye said. "The overall figure is much less than last year. When you go on that basis, we're doing extremely well. But, I'm never satisfied. I believe there are other items that should be addressed."
The senior senator has said he also will work to increase the proposed budget for Native Hawaiian education programs, which would get $18 million in the Bush budget. Congress approved $30.5 million for the programs for fiscal 2002.
This is one example of an increase during the congressional appropriations process in the past. For fiscal 2001, the Clinton administration proposed $23 million for Native Hawaiian programs; they wound up getting $28 million that year.
In addition, some programs would get more money in the Bush budget. The president proposed $7 million in fiscal 2003 for Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian-serving colleges and universities. Last year, Congress approved $6 million for the same set of programs, which also got $6 million in 2001.
Paul Cardus, an Akaka spokesman, noted that the president requested $14.3 million for the East-West Center in Honolulu, a bit more than the $14 million the center received for fiscal 2002.
"His father used to try to kill it every year," Cardus said. "The point is, the president always proposes less and the delegation always gets more," he said.
"I don't think there's a sense of alarm. Any criticism or concern about the budget is tempered by the fact that we've gone through this in the past."
Some programs the president praised effusively a few months ago are now under threat of being scrapped, he said.
"We have to be happy our programs haven't been eliminated," Cardus said. "Clearly, this is just a small part of what promises to be an extremely contentious budget season."
