February 5, 2007 5:00PM 

# Some Perspective on the President’s Budget Request 

By [Stephen Slivinski](https://www.cato.org/people/stephen-slivinski) 

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The White House has been spinning reporters all day with the claim that the new budget holds non-defense spending down, and in some cases even cuts some domestic spending from 2006 budget levels.

To test the claim, I’ve compiled below the proposed fiscal 2008 inflation-adjusted growth rates for spending in the non-defense Cabinet-level agencies compared to the 2006 budget:

| **Real Proposed Change in 2008 Non-Defense Cabinet-Level Agency Budget vs. 2006 Budget Level** |
|---|
| | |
| Agriculture | -9.2% |
| Commerce | 5.9% |
| Education | -40.2% |
| Energy | 6.1% |
| Health and Human Services | 8.5% |
| Housing and Urban Development | -0.2% |
| Interior | 10.8% |
| Justice | -1.7% |
| Labor | 15.6% |
| Transportation | 6.3% |
| Treasury | 7.7% |
| Veterans Affairs | 13.8% |
| EPA | -10.9% |
| **Total** | **4.1%** |

All told, there are five agencies that receive a cut in real dollars: Agriculture, Education, HUD, Justice, and the Environmental Protection Agency. Yet even by the White House’s own numbers, all of these programs combined will still grow beyond the 2006 levels by 4 percentage points above inflation.

Still, we need to wonder: What does this standard really tell us?

Not much. The 2006 budget levels were already bloated after a six-year Republican spending spree. What’s actually interesting to see is how much these agencies would grow — after adjusting for inflation and assuming Congress rubber-stamps the president’s new budget — when compared to budget levels on the day Bush assumed office:

| **Real Proposed Change in 2008 Non-Defense Cabinet-Level Agency Budget vs. 2001 Budget Level** |
|---|
| | |
| Agriculture | 8.0% |
| Commerce | 16.8% |
| Education | 36.2% |
| Energy | 10.7% |
| Health and Human Services | 35.6% |
| Housing and Urban Development | 8.3% |
| Interior | 12.0% |
| Justice | 7.7% |
| Labor | 8.8% |
| Transportation | 12.4% |
| Treasury | 11.7% |
| Veterans Affairs | 52.7% |
| EPA | -12.8% |
| **Total** | **22.4%** |

To put it another way: Bush’s new budget still does next to nothing to strip away most of the massive budget increases in domestic programs he signed into law since 2001. It’s the fiscal equivalent of a recovering alcoholic patting himself on the back for merely drinking six beers a day instead of eight.

##### Related Tags 

[Government and Politics](https://www.cato.org/government-politics), [Tax and Budget Policy](https://www.cato.org/tax-budget-policy) 

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