Lawmakers’ Pet Projects Targets of Bush’s Cuts

To make up an estimated $1.3-billion shortage for a popular college tuition grant program, the Bush administration is proposing to cut funding for hundreds of local education and community projects that lawmakers singled out for federal aid late last year.

Among the potential targets: $1 million for a literacy technology center in the Pomona Unified School District, $800,000 for educational programs and exhibits at the Children’s Museum of Los Angeles and $50,000 for a performing arts literacy program at the East Los Angeles Classic Theatre.

The proposal, part of the federal budget Bush is releasing Monday, underscores the fiscal pressures in Washington as the government plunges back into budget deficits and the war on terrorism drives up defense and security spending.

It also marks an escalation of the president’s campaign against what he and other critics call pork-barrel spending--an ingrained part of doing business in Congress.

Administration officials said Thursday that cutting these pet projects of particular lawmakers is a legitimate way to find money for Pell grants, which provide up to $4,000 a year in tuition assistance for low-income college students.

But Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill immediately dismissed the proposal as a stunt.

“There’s no way we’re going to do this,” said John Scofield, spokesman for the Republican majority on the House Appropriations Committee. Jim Dyer, the committee director, called the proposal “beyond the pale” and “an attempt to embarrass our committee.”

Rep. Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, a senior Democrat on the House Appropriations subcommittee that funds labor, health and education programs, said: “President Bush is trying to rob Peter to pay Paul, and that simply isn’t going to work.”

No one argues that the Pell grant program is short of funds. The reason is twofold: applications for financial aid are growing, and so are the maximum awards.

About 4.44 million students are expected to qualify for aid in the 2002-03 school year, Education Department officials estimate. That’s up from 4.28 million in 2001-02 and 3.91 million the year before. At the same time, Congress has raised the maximum award to $4,000, up from $3,750 in 2000-01.

With federal revenue failing to meet expenses as a result of the recession, tax cuts and spending demands, the Education Department will not have enough money in the current fiscal year to pay eligible students as much as Congress says they are entitled. “In essence, Congress has written a check for $11.6 billion but deposited only $10.3 billion in the bank to cover it,” an administration budget document says.

Administration officials expect to ask Congress to direct more money to the tuition grants in a special fiscal 2002 appropriations bill. But they are asking for something in return that few lawmakers seem willing to give: cuts in the so-called “earmarked” programs. In a proposal circulating Thursday, the administration was asking Congress to examine $2.2 billion in already enacted spending items--including about $1 billion worth of earmarks--to meet the shortage.

“The overarching problem is when you have a finite amount of resources to deal with lots of important issues,” said Trent Duffy, a spokesman for White House budget director Mitchell E. Daniels Jr.

The shortage in tuition grant funding, Duffy said, is an “example of what happens when funds are diverted for other purposes.”

More than 1,600 local projects and programs were inserted last year into the spending bill for labor, health and education. The list includes items from Republican and Democratic lawmakers from all parts of the country, including a significant number from California.

The Pomona Unified literacy program was championed by Rep. David Dreier (R-San Dimas), chairman of the House Rules Committee. He was unavailable for comment late Thursday.

The Children’s Museum funding was spearheaded by Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Mission Hills). His spokeswoman, Gene Smith, said that while the project may be a low priority for Bush, it is “a very high priority for us.” Smith said the funding would help educate “a very broad array of children, many of them extremely underprivileged.”

And the East Los Angeles literacy project was backed by Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-Los Angeles). She said in a statement that Congress should set aside more money for Pell grants. “However, the money does not have to come from important programs already approved by the House and Senate and signed into law by the president,” Roybal-Allard said.

She suggested another solution: delaying some of the tax cuts for the wealthy that Bush pushed into law last year as part of a 10-year, $1.35-trillion package of cuts.