Just as investments in the nation’s public health and emergency medical systems, in the name of homeland security, are good for the country, so, too are investments in non-emergency, non-defense programs that help to meet the needs of the country’s struggling communities. Tax cuts should not prevent us from addressing both.

Just as investments in the nation’s public health and emergency medical systems, in the name of homeland security, are good for the country, so, too are investments in non-emergency, non-defense programs that help to meet the needs of the country’s struggling communities. Tax cuts should not prevent us from addressing both.

The President’s FY 2003 Budget, released February 4, includes $37.7 billion worth of “homeland security” spending. Among the categories specified under this $37.7 billion heading are “Supporting first responders,” “Defending against biological terrorism,” “Securing our borders,” “Sharing information and using information technology,” and “Aviation security.” The remaining $12.2 billion of the homeland security total is designated as “Other homeland security.” GovExec.com reports that White House Office of Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge has said that the nation’s homeland security strategy is still being developed and will not be finished until Summer 2002. This means that the FY 2004 budget is likely to include further increases to reflect the “full agenda” for homeland security. This is spending for a cause that most policy makers and the public have given strong support to.

OMB Watch has argued for some time now, however, that to be effective, a national strategy for increased homeland security must go beyond securing the nation’s borders, airports, and infectious disease research facilities. The speeches and proposed legislation of the nation’s policy makers are too narrowly focused on the defensive measures of security, and not enough on the many preventative measures necessary to ensure that our day-to-day lives are also grounded in security – security in the knowledge that we and our neighbors are not forced to choose between a visit to the doctor’s office and a nutritious dinner, or dinner and a warm, safe home in which to sleep at night, or child care and training for a better-paying job. The President’s budget boasts a $5.5 billion increase in spending for the Department of Health and Human Services, which works to address minimizing the need for such impossible choices, but the Department’s overall increase masks the details of numerous cuts to many of these programs.

In fact, many of the overall increases shown in the FY 2003 proposed budget seem to be made up, in large part, of homeland security increases. According to the calculations of the Senate Budget Committee’s Democratic staff, when homeland security spending is extracted, all other domestic discretionary spending actually takes a 6.2% cut.

Specifically, of the total $5.5 billion HHS increase, $1.7 billion goes to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to “perform fundamental research leading to the development of vaccines, therapeutics, diagnostic tests, and reliable biological agent collection.” According to the President’s Budget, another $1.2 billion will go to “increase the capacity of state and local health delivery systems to respond to bioterrorism attacks,” with $590 million of this total going to hospitals for “infrastructure improvements such as communications systems and decontamination facilities” and $210 million for states to assess their bioterrorism response capacity.

Thus, while increasing funding to protect against health catastrophes brought about by “biological terrorism,” the President’s budget freezes at FY 2002 levels and even cuts many of the programs that work to ensure the day-to-day health needs of our country’s low-income, rural, and uninsured communities are met. Here is a quick look at some of the Health and Human Services programs that will receive cuts or which will receive the same level of funding they received last year. (Remember that, because of inflation, maintaining the same level of funding from year to year actually results in a cut in terms of the purchasing power of the program’s dollars.)

Also, as George Krumbhaar, of GalleryWatch’s USBudget analyses, notes, a cut (or an increase) in a specific line item of a program does not provide any information as to the total funding changes for the program as a whole -- so please see the Appendix of the President’s FY 2003 Budget for other line-by-line spending notes.

Surely some of the benefits of a fortified public health, emergency medical care, and infectious disease response system will befall those in the communities impacted by the cuts outlined above. And no one would want to be in the position to choose between addressing existing needs and investing to prepare for potential future needs, but we shouldn’t be forced to make these tradeoffs. Indeed, we would not have to contend with such stark choices at all if we were to use the monies now tied up in the $1.35 trillion tax cut to pay for these pressing immediate and long-term needs. The President’s budget proposal recognizes the importance of spending money now to invest in research and expansion of the capacity of the nation’s health systems to respond to a bioterrorism threat – an investment that will not pay off for some time (and hopefully we will never need to test such readiness), but the budget must reach farther and spend money now to meet the many other pressing needs – in place long before September 11 and only exacerbated by a slowed economy and layoffs -- of the nation’s struggling communities.