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| Background On February 7, 2005, President Bush released his budget. The $2.5 trillion budget would focus on fighting terrorism and protecting the homeland while eliminating other government programs. The budget called for a five-year freeze in domestic spending to get control of the federal budget deficit. What was left out of t he budget was the future cost for military action in Iraq as well as possible changes in Social Security. This budget also would cap the growth of overall discretionary spending, appropriated funds that Congress controls, to 2.1%, which is lower than the projected rates based on inflation. In terms of health issues, the President’s budget eliminated or reduced the funding for health care programs that target prevention, chronic disease and obesity, but increased spending for state SCHIP program enrollment efforts, community health care clinics in low income counties and the FDA. The total budget for HHS requested was $642 billion, which is an increase of $58 million or just over 10% from FY05. Of the categories of health professions funding, only nursing, scholarships for disadvantaged students, and the National Health Service Corps received funding. Once again, Title VII health professions training activities were zeroed out. Nurse Training Programs in the FY06 Budget were allotted $150 million, which is very similar to FY05. Scholarships for Disadvantaged Students/Workforce Information and Analysis only received $11 million, which is a decrease of $37 million from FY05. The President’s budget requested 127 million for the National Health Service Corps, which was also similar to last year. The President’s requested $319 million for ARHQ, which is the same as FY05. Rural health was hit hard this year, in that the President only requested $29 million for these programs down from $144 million in FY05. Other HHS programs were affected by the Presidents budget request. The CDC’s FY06 Budget request was $4.0 billion, which is a decrease of 9% from FY05. More emphasis is to be placed on expanding funding for influenza vaccine, improving childhood immunization, expanding global disease detection efforts, and expanding the Strategic National Stockpile. The FY06 request for NIH is $28.5 billion, which is a 0.7% increase from FY05.
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