U.S. President George W. Bush is sending Congress a $2.5 trillion (¤1.9 trillion) spending plan, constrained by war and record deficits, that seeks to slash spending in a number of popular programs from farm subsidies to poor people's health care. While calling it the tightest budget of Bush's presidency, Vice President Dick Cheney defended the spending blueprint against Democratic complaints that its austerity falls hardest on the poor. "It's not something that we've done with a meat ax, nor are we suddenly turning our backs on the most needy people in our society," Cheney said on "Fox News Sunday." The budget's arrival Monday on Capitol Hill sets off months of contentious debate, with lawmakers from both parties expected to fight to protect favorite programs. Bush has targeted 150 programs for either outright elimination or severe cutbacks as part of an effort to meet his campaign pledge to cut the deficit in half by 2009, the year he leaves office. For the 2006 budget year that begins next Oct. 1, he proposes spending $2.5 trillion (¤1.9 trillion) as he seeks to put the government on a path of declining deficits. That would occur, however, only after the government has recorded three straight years of record deficits, in dollar terms, including a projected $427 billion (¤326 billion) in red ink this year.
