Speaking on "Fox News Sunday," Cheney said the plan will increase the military and homeland security budgets but keep overall spending below next year's expected 2.3 percent inflation rate, in part by eliminating or cutting back on some 150 other programs. "This is the tightest budget that has been submitted since we got here," Cheney said.
"It is a fair, reasonable, responsible, serious piece of effort," he said. "It's not something we have done with a meat ax, nor are we suddenly turning our backs on the most needy people in our society."
The budget's submission will set off months of intense debate. Lawmakers from both parties can be expected to vigorously fight to protect their favorite programs. Opponents have called for at least a partial rollback of Bush's tax cuts, saying they primarily have benefited the wealthy.
The president, who campaigned for reelection on a pledge to cut the deficit in half by 2009, is targeting 150 government programs for either outright elimination or sharp cutbacks. During his first term, record federal budget surpluses were replaced by record budget deficits.
The new federal fiscal year begins Oct. 1. For the current year, Bush is estimating the budget deficit will reach a record $427 billion. That compares with last year's $412 billion deficit and is the third straight year the Bush administration will have set, in dollar terms, a deficit record.
The five-year projections in the budget will show the deficit declining to about $230 billion in 2009, when a new president takes office.
However, those projections do not take into account some big-ticket items: the military costs incurred in Iraq and Afghanistan, the price of making Bush's first term tax cuts permanent, or the transition costs for his No. 1 domestic priority, overhauling Social Security.
Senator Kent Conrad, the top Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee, said Bush's budget "talks about the next five years of reducing deficits, but what that hides is what happens after that five-year window. The cost of everything he advocates explodes."
