Congressional reporters say many of President Bush's FY2007 budget proposals drew a “decidedly cool reception” from House committees that submitted their annual "views and estimates" to the Budget Committee to help it in drafting the congressional budget resolution for FY2007.

Congressional appropriators are not the only ones unhappy. Advocates for children, youth and families say the President's plan belies the Administration’s call to keep America competitive.

The President's proposals to spend more on making tax cuts permanent will make it even harder to cut the deficit and maintain a strong economy.

By ignoring the areas where the real money is and focusing cuts on non-defense domestic spending, the President’s budget could do a lot of harm to families, children and youth with little to show in reducing the federal deficit.

As Isabel Sawhill notes, 84 percent of the federal budget is for entitlements, defense, homeland security, or interest on the debt. A 1 percent cut in nominal non-security discretionary spending for one year reduces total spending by only 0.17 percent.

An analysis by the Workforce Alliance indicates the President's plan would cut over $600 million (10 percent) to Department of Labor job-training and related workforce development programs and over $1.6 billion (11 percent) in cuts to Department of Education vocational education, adult education and select financial aid programs.

Programs that would suffer from proposed cuts in the President's budget include Job Corps (a $31-million- dollar cut), YouthBuild (a $12.5-million-dollar reduction), AmeriCorps (a $20-million-dollar cut), the Social Services Block Grant (a $500-million-dollar cut), community-based job training grants to community colleges (cut from $124 million to $8 million) and the Juvenille Accountability Block Grant (a $47-million-dollar cut). Those programs proposed for elimination include the Reintegration for Young Offenders program and the TRIO programs and GEAR UP that help disadvantaged youth get on track for high school success and college.