Still featuring a $1.6 trillion tax cut, and calling for reduced spending in discretionary programs, President Bush on Monday sent Congress the "fine print" of his $1.96 trillion fiscal year 2002 federal budget first proposed on February 28.

Besides retaining the $1.6 trillion tax cut, Here are some details of the budget released by the White House on Monday:

• Cuts $227 million from Former President Clinton's program to hire 100,000 additional police officers, because the program has already met and exceeded it goals.
  
  
• Cuts $35 million from Clinton Administration programs for training doctors at children's hospitals a for developing health care facilities for poor and uninsured persons.
  
  
• Establishes a $35 billion to grant $2,000-per-year tax credits to assist uninsured people buy health insurance, even if they pay no income taxes.
  
  
• Increases funding for Pell grants, the main government program for financial aid to college students.
  
  
• Increases funding for food safety programs by $21 billion.
  
  
• Proposes a $67 million program for mentoring children of imprisoned parents.
  
  
• Increases funding for child abuse prevention programs.
  
  
• Calls for spending an additional $87 million on an existing program to help cities and states hire "front-line" criminal prosecutors.
  
  
• Requests $1 billion for a presidential initiative to increasing military compensation.

The budget details released by the president did not include a complete defense budget. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is in the process of of concluding a full review of defense strategy and plans. Defense Department officials expect a full defense budget request will be sent to Congress by May 15.

Both the House and Senate have now approved their own versions of budget proposals for 2002. The House and Senate proposals differ both with each other and with that of President Bush.

On Friday (April 6, 2001), the Senate approved a budget resolution reducing to $1.2 trillion Bush's proposed $1.6 trillion 10-year tax cut and calling for an immediate $85 billion tax refund designed to stimulate the economy. The House-approved budget proposal called for the entire $1.6 trillion in tax cuts as proposed by the White House.

A House-Senate joint conference committee must now meet to hammer out a compromise budget resolution. Bush Administration officials are hoping for at least a $1.3 trillion tax cut to come from the committee.

Once the House, the Senate and the White House agree on one, the budget resolution serves merely as a "blueprint" to be used by the 13 appropriations subcommittees in each chamber of Congress in determining the yearly funding levels for every federal department, agency and program. The subcommittees and lawmakers can and often do increase or decrease, within specified limits, funding levels suggested in the budget resolution.

The actual, final federal budget consists of the 13 spending bills created by the appropriations subcommittees, approved by Congress and signed into law by the president, theoretically by October 1, the start of the next government fiscal year.

The complete, 2500-page detailed budget proposal released by the White House can be viewed or downloaded from the Office of Management and Budget at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2002/appendix.html

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