President Bush is ready to ship Congress an outline of his $1.9 trillion federal budget for next year, which he says will prove there is room for a big tax cut and other priorities. Democrats beg to differ.

Bush's fiscal plan would launch a 10-year, $1.6 trillion cut in income-tax rates, the estates tax and other levies, the centerpiece of his domestic agenda. It would increase spending for schools, defense and biomedical research while paying down a huge chunk of the publicly held national debt.

In addition, it will propose temporary subsidies for prescription drug purchases by low-income elderly people, a near $1 trillion, multiyear reserve that could be used to shore up Social Security or for other purposes, and a $5 billion-a-year fund for natural disasters and other emergencies.

" I hope you'll agree that my plan is good for you and for your family," Bush said Saturday in his weekly radio address. "But even more, I hope you'll agree it's good for America."

Bush will describe his budget to a joint session of Congress Tuesday night, and send lawmakers a slender, one-volume summary of it the next morning. The administration plans to release a full-fledged, program-by-program version of the proposal in early April, commencing months of battling as the Republican-controlled House and Senate try tuning Bush's proposals into law. Democrats say they have already seen enough.

What Bush is really proposing, they say, is a tax cut whose price will swell beyond $2 trillion, is aimed largely at the rich, and will crowd out money needed for schools, the military, prescription drugs and other areas.

"It is so shortsighted, so live for today, so much the me generation," said Sen. Kent Conrad of North Dakota; the Senate Budget Committee's top Democrat.

Peninsula Daily News, February 25, 2001