Washington, D.C. – Congressman John Conyers, condemned today the Bush administration’s budget proposals for Fiscal Year 2006, calling the President’s priorities “wrong-headed” and “cold-hearted” on domestic issues. Conyers, Dean of the Congressional Black Caucus and Ranking Minority Member of the House Judiciary Committee, issued the following statement:

“President Bush told America yesterday that his budget for Fiscal Year 2006 ‘sets priorities’ by drastically cutting funding for critical domestic programs. The President’s priorities clearly do not reflect the basic values that hold our communities together. With large cuts in funding for manufacturing, job training, health care, home-heating aid, education and local law enforcement, the President’s budget is principally wrong-headed and, in many areas, just plain cold-hearted.

Even in the face of millions of job losses, the President’s budget would cripple our struggling economy, cutting funding for job training services by $500 million and slashing the Manufacturing Extension Partnership, a key program that helps small U.S. manufacturers to modernize and train employees by nearly 60 percent.

While 45 million Americans still do not have health insurance, the President’s priorities on health care devastate the poor – in particular, children, the elderly and people with disabilities. His proposal to cut Medicaid by $60 billion is morally unjustifiable. Under the President’s proposals, Michigan alone faces losses of more than $1 billion in Medicaid benefits over the next 10 years.

Particularly cruel are proposed budget cuts to a program that supply millions of low-income people with home-heating aid. These cuts would force many elderly to choose between eating, taking their medication and heating their homes in a time of record energy prices.

The President fails once again to make education one of his priorities. His budget greatly shortchanges his No Child Left Behind program, leaving millions of children behind and our state budgets burdened by his unfunded mandates. Worse yet, the President proposes eliminating or weakening countless education programs vital to our communities. His priorities drastically slash the inner-city program Upward Bound, the literacy program Even Start, and programs that provide millions of children with vocational education and student loans. The President even seeks to drastically cut Safe and Drug-Free School grants, which help keep drugs out of our community schools.

And while the President likes to talk about beefing up homeland security, his budget slashes funding for first-responders. The local law enforcement program Community-Oriented Policing Services (COPS) – which is credited for substantially reducing crime during the Clinton administration – would face cuts of nearly 90 percent while funding for local fire-fighters would be reduced by 30 percent. This administration defies logic in slashing this funding and weakening our front lines in the war on terrorism.

There is nothing compassionate or correct about the President’s priorities. They are devastating to our communities and contrary to America’s core values. This wrong-headed and cold-hearted budget is a recipe for domestic disaster.” 

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