WASHINGTON, Feb. 6 (UPI) -- U.S. President George Bush sent Congress a fiscal year 2007 budget that totals $2.77 trillion.
The budget, for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1, includes cuts in 141 programs the president says are not working. Those savings represent some $15 billion, but the budget is still projected to produce a deficit of $354 billion.
The departments of Defense and Homeland Security are given increases of 7 and 6 percent respectively, the document, delivered to Congress Monday, shows.
The Pentagon's budget totals $440 billion, but this doesn't include the $70 billion Bush recently asked for to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Homeland Security Department budget totals $42.7 billion with some $50 million extra for a National Preparedness Integration Program, to coordinate emergency response, and funding for 1,500 extra Border Patrol agents.
Nearly every other sector of the executive branch of government is being asked to cut budgets. The cuts are necessary, the White House says, to reduce the deficit in half by 2009, a goal of the president's.
Many of the cuts are in so-called entitlement programs, which sees some $65 billion in reductions of projected growth over the next five years, with more than half that figure coming from Medicare.
