A friend sent me this analysis and it makes you wonder just how "compassionate" the President and his staff are today.

Here is the analysis:

"Is the Budget Fair and Balanced?

Although the fiscal consequences of the tax cuts enacted in recent years are becoming increasingly apparent, the Administration has responded not by reassessing any of those tax cuts, but by proposing sharp cuts in many domestic programs, alongside an array of costly new tax breaks. The tax cuts would favor the most well-off, while the program cuts would primarily affect low- and middle-income Americans.

Sizeable Program Cuts * The budget would cut expenditures for non-defense discretionary programs outside homeland security by a cumulative total of $125 billion over the next five years, as compared to what expenditures for these programs would be if funding for the programs simply remained at the 2006 level, adjusted only for inflation. By 2011, expenditures for programs in this part of the budget would be cut an average of 10 percent. * Cuts would be made in hundreds of domestic discretionary programs across the budget, including education programs, environmental protection programs, numerous programs to assist low-income families, children, and elderly and disabled people, and research related to cancer, heart disease, and other medical conditions. * Program Terminations: For example, among the domestic discretionary programs that would be terminated are: * The Commodity Supplemental Food Program, which provides nutritional food packages for less than $20 a month to more than 400,000 low-income elderly people, one-third of whom are over age 75; * The Preventive Care Block Grant, which is operated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and provides grants to states for preventive health services for underserved populations; * The TRIO Talent Search program, under which colleges and universities ­ in many cases, Historically Black Colleges and Universities ­ assist disadvantaged secondary school students (two-thirds of whom are minority) by providing them with academic, career, and financial counseling so they will better be able to finish high school and attend college; * The Community Services Block Grant, which provides funding for a range of social services and other types of assistance to low-income families and elderly and disabled individuals.

Other programs that would be terminated include: the Emergency Watershed Protection Program, Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs, and Safe and Drug Free Schools Grants. * Deep Program Cuts: Among the domestic discretionary programs that would be cut deeply are: * Section 202 housing for the low-income elderly ­ funding in 2007 would be cut 26 percent below the 2006 level, even before adjustment for inflation. * Section 811 housing for low-income people with disabilities ­ cut 50 percent in 2007. * Community Development Block Grant formula grant program ­ cut 30 percent in 2007. * Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS), which promotes community policing primarily by putting police on the streets ­ cut 79 percent in 2007. * * Cuts in child care: The President’s budget also calls for cuts in discretionary child care funding for children from low- and moderate-income families, with the cuts totaling $1 billion over the next five years as compared to the fiscal year 2006 funding levels adjusted for inflation. Data from the President’s budget show that at the proposed funding levels, the number of children receiving child care assistance in 2011 would drop by more than 400,000 as compared to the number who received assistance in 2005. * These cuts would be made despite the fact that domestic discretionary programs have not contributed to the return of budget deficits. After having been cut in inflation-adjusted terms in fiscal year 2006, total funding for domestic discretionary programs outside homeland security is lower now as a share of the economy than it was in 2001. (It has fallen from 3.4 percent of GDP in 2001 to 3.1 percent of GDP this year. * The budget also proposes reductions in various entitlement programs. These proposals include some cuts that would not directly affect people in need, such as the changes that the Administration is proposing in Medicare, which would save $36 billion over five years and $105 billion over ten years. The Medicare proposals would make better sense if they were used for deficit reduction rather than to help finance tax cuts.

The entitlement changes in the budget also include proposals that would adversely affect vulnerable families and individuals. For example, the budget proposes to cut the Social Services Block Grant, which provides funding to states to provide social services for low-income and vulnerable populations, by $500 million ­ or 30 percent ­ in 2007. * The budget also contains new cuts in Medicaid, which provides health insurance to low-income children, parents, seniors, and people with disabilities. The budget proposes legislative changes in Medicaid that would reduce federal Medicaid funding by a net of $1.5 billion over five years and $5.1 billion over ten years, as well as regulatory changes that would reduce federal funding by an additional $12.2 billion over five years. (No ten-year figure is provided for the regulatory changes.) A substantial majority of these Medicaid changes would be achieved by shifting costs to states. That likely would induce many states to reduce eligibility or scale back health benefits for low-income Medicaid beneficiaries, possibly by using the authority that the just-passed budget reconciliation bill gives states to increase co-payments, impose premiums, and narrow the health services that Medicaid covers. * The new budget thus includes cuts in many programs and services for low-income households. These cuts would come on top of the cuts made in Medicaid, child-support enforcement, Supplemental Security Income for the elderly and disabled poor, and other low-income programs in the budget reconciliation bill that Congress just approved, and would come at a time when the number and percentage of Americans living in poverty has increased for four consecutive years.

Regressive Tax Cuts * Although the budget includes significant domestic program reductions, they would be heavily outweighed by the tax cuts. The budget shows that its proposed tax cuts would cost $285 billion over five years and $1.7 trillion over ten years.[2] As explained earlier, these figures understate the cost of the tax cuts because they leave out the costs of AMT relief after 2006 For the complete analysis go to: http://www.cbpp.org/2-6-06bud.htm