"...As the son of two Veterans Administration employees, ... Senator Santorum has focused on efforts to ensure that the American men and women who serve in our military are treated with the respect and honor they so richly deserve. " 

"I remain committed to ensuring that our veterans receive the benefits entitled to them... I believe that service to our country has entitled veterans to unique benefits that are available to no other single group of Americans.  The care and medical treatment of our nation's veterans and their families and the efforts to improve their healthcare delivery system remain very important to me."

Santorum's website

Bush's Budget Expected to Be Aggressive

Program Cuts and Spending Freezes for 2006 Are Intended to Trim Record Deficit

The Bush administration is preparing a budget request that would freeze most spending on agriculture, veterans and science, slash or eliminate dozens of federal programs, and force more costs, from Medicaid to housing, onto state and local governments, according to congressional aides and lawmakers...

The tough budget for the fiscal year that begins in October is intended to signal President Bush's commitment to reining in the record federal deficit, and to satisfying conservative critics who note spending has soared since Bush took office.

"From a thematic standpoint, the goal is to reduce the deficit in half over four years, and you can't reduce the deficit if you don't reduce the growth of entitlements," said Senate Budget Committee Chairman Judd Gregg (R-N.H.). "If the president sends up an aggressive budget, I'll be certainly receptive to it, and I think the Congress will be, too."

Budget and appropriations committee aides say Bush's budget -- to be presented Feb. 7 -- will be aggressive.

Bush will impose "very, very strong discipline" in his 2006 budget, White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. told the U.S. Chamber of Commerce yesterday. "That discipline will be there big-time."

Said Gregg: "Clearly, there is not going to be a lot of growth."

Congressional aides have been told to expect virtually the same level of spending in fiscal 2006 as this year in programs unconnected to defense and homeland security. This fiscal year, those domestic programs grew at a slim eight-tenths of a percentage point, and Bush plans to be even tighter, ensuring that spending would not keep up with inflation in most domestic programs.

Many of the programs on the chopping block were there last year. For instance, Bush unsuccessfully tried to cut the budget of the Army Corps of Engineers by $597 million, or 13 percent.

This year may be different.

"We have to find the money somewhere to [restore the president's proposed cuts], and I don't know how you find it if everything is tighter than a drum," said one House Appropriations Committee aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "They are on the war path."

Gregg agreed, noting that with the election over, conservatives are eager to attack government growth.

"I think it's going to be very doable because the whole tenor has changed," he said...

Veterans programs are also expected to be pinched, with flat funding, higher deductibles and co-payments for health care and a squeeze on benefit eligibility, aides said...

Brian M. Riedl, a federal budget analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said the White House will again propose to turn Medicaid health care funding into block grants for state governments. The proposal was first made last year, and included initial payment increases and expanded discretion for state and local governments to change the primary health care system for the poor. Those sweeteners would then be followed by cuts in later years.

The same approach probably will be repeated for public housing, a Senate leadership aide said.

The White House is also mulling changes to farm subsidies that would cut benefits to large agribusinesses, Riedl said...

By Jonathan Weisman, Washington Post  Jan 12, 2005

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