Perspective: Bush Budget Bashes Illinois Funding on Many Fronts

President Bush announced the outlines of his budget proposal for the next federal fiscal year and beyond in a speech in early February. In spite of later additional information from other parts of the administration, much of the specifics of the budget proposal are not yet known, in some cases even to the administration itself. Nevertheless, the broad contours are known, and they establish a very troubling policy direction, both because of the specifics of particular issues and because of the overall approach.

The administration’s overall approach—its attitude—above all is characterized by a carefree cost-shift from the federal government to the states and localities. This cost-shift is driven by the fact that the federal government has large new expenses related to the wars we are in, the upswing in spending on homeland security, and the increasing cost of the national debt, coupled with the fact that we also have far less money to spend due to the series of tax cuts that the administration has championed and won. Rather than increase revenues by curtailing the tax cuts, the administration proposes more tax cuts that will exacerbate the deficit, along with dramatic cuts in domestic spending, shifting a large financial burden from the federal government to the states (without actually reducing the deficit).

The social needs met by most of the spending that the president wants to cut will not magically disappear. The responsibility for addressing them is simply shifted to the states in magnitude corresponding to the federal cuts. The states will either have to raise taxes or allow the needs to go unmet. Allowing the needs to go unmet will cause a similar shift to localities—higher taxes or unmet needs. If the needs go unmet at any point, the problems they represent compound, causing heightened needs. And so forth. But the Bush administration’s attitude appears to be that that is not their affair—they want to cut taxes more than before, and they want to address the resulting, growing federal deficit by slashing spending and dumping problems on the states.
As the administration fleshes out its proposals, we can make reasonable estimates of the cost-shift described above. Some of these estimates are contained in a report released recently by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: Sharon Parrott et al., “Where Would the Cuts Be made Under the President’s Budget?” (Feb. 22, 2005) (available at www.cbpp.org). The report deals only with likely cuts in “discretionary” spending programs (not including, therefore, some of the biggest potential hits to “entitlement” programs such as Medicaid, Medicare, and food stamps).

The Center on Budget notes in the report that the Bush cuts in discretionary domestic programs grow over time. Together they are $18 billion in 2006, but that would grow to $66 billion in 2010. The report describes the Center on Budget’s assumptions and methodologies, and then produces state-by-state estimates of cuts in key programs. Here are some of the unhappy totals for cuts in Illinois in 2010, and over the whole 2006–2010 period:

See also Julie Strawn and Amy-Ellen Duke, Center on Law and Social Policy, “President’s Budget Sabotages Pipeline of Skilled Workers” (Feb. 22, 2005), which makes estimates just with respect to adult education and English language programs. The report estimates that Illinois in 2006 would lose over 75 percent of its funding for these programs, causing over 47,000 students, or 38 percent of the current enrollment, to lose access to a program.

As noted above, these estimates do not include any of the cuts in “entitlement programs.” The cut in Illinois under the president’s Medicaid proposal has been estimated as high as $250 million per year.

For another review of the impact of the Bush proposals on Illinois, see “Federal Budget Cuts Would Hurt Illinois Families and Children,” Voices for Illinois Children Budget and Tax Policy Initiative (February 2005), available at www.voices4kids.org.
There is much at stake for Illinois in the federal budget battle this year. The Bush administration’s apparent preference for continuation and increase of tax cuts over the programs indicated here of course creates havoc for those programs, the policies they represent, and the needs they address. And overall they represent a huge cost-shift that Illinois and its communities, already in severe financial straits, cannot afford to absorb.

John Bouman is director of advocacy at the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law. You can reach him at 312.263.3830 ext. 250.