Bush to Push Increase for Homeland Security Budget

President Bush said Thursday that he will ask Congress to boost funding for homeland security next year by nearly 10%, including a 19% increase for counter-terrorism programs run by the Justice Department.

“My job is to secure the homeland, and that’s exactly what we’re going to do,” the president said.

At the same time, Bush will propose almost no overall increase in discretionary spending, other than for defense and homeland security programs, White House communications director Dan Bartlett said.

The restrictions on spending come as many conservatives and deficit hawks are growing increasingly uneasy over the ballooning federal budget deficit, which is approaching $500 billion for this fiscal year. In early 2001, about the time Bush took office, the Congressional Budget Office projected that the government would have surpluses totaling $5.6 trillion over 10 years.

Bush has said repeatedly that he would spend whatever it takes to protect America from another terrorist attack and to make sure that the U.S. armed forces, as he put it here, “will have the resources they need to fight and win the war on terror.”

The president talked about his budget proposals for fiscal year 2005, due to be sent to Congress on Feb. 2, during a two-hour visit to Roswell. He also said the nation had made progress in the war on terrorism, even as he warned of the continuing dangers ahead. His remarks amounted to a condensed version of his Tuesday night State of the Union address.

Bush also vowed anew to press the international hunt for terrorist leaders, declaring: “There is no hole deep enough to hide from America!”

Throughout his remarks, the president sounded upbeat notes and sought to project his determination. As he addressed an audience of 1,500 in the Roswell Convention and Civic Center, he stood before a giant sign that proclaimed “America: Confident and Strong.”

Bush’s budget for next fiscal year will call for $2.6 billion in additional funding for Justice Department counterterrorism programs, including the hiring of new FBI agents. That would mark a 19% increase from the current year.

If approved by Congress, overall funding for the FBI would rise to $5.1 billion for fiscal 2005, a 60% increase over 2001 levels, the White House said. According to the White House, some of the increase would fund the FBI’s participation with the CIA in a venture known as the Terrorist Threat Integration Center, which aims to promote the sharing of intelligence about terrorist threats between the longtime agency rivals.

NASA would be the only other agency to escape Bush’s proposal for a tight cap on discretionary spending. His budget would give the agency a 5.6% increase to jump-start Bush’s initiative to create a permanent base on the moon and eventually send astronauts to Mars.

While Congress has largely embraced Bush’s proposals for a rapid buildup in homeland security spending since the Sept. 11 attacks, how the agencies are managing the money has been a cause of concern to some lawmakers.

Bush’s proposed funding for homeland security is apt to be scrutinized more than ever.

A new FBI computer system, for instance, which the bureau has deemed crucial to its new terrorism-fighting charter, is millions of dollars over budget.

The Homeland Security Department, meanwhile, is less than a year old.

“I am wondering how they are going to absorb that kind of increase, quite honestly,” James Carafano, a senior fellow with the Heritage Foundation, a Washington think tank, said of Bush’s proposal to boost overall spending on homeland security by 9.7%.

Also Thursday, the president made comments by telephone to antiabortion protesters at the annual March For Life on the National Mall in Washington, on the 31st anniversary of the Supreme Court ruling in Roe vs. Wade.

The president hailed the marchers for their “devotion to such a noble cause.”

Bush said that while “we’ve made real progress toward building a culture of life in America,” he wanted to see additional measures. They include a “comprehensive and effective” ban on human cloning, laws requiring parental notification before minors can obtain abortions, renewed efforts to promote sexual abstinence and support for crisis pregnancy centers.