President Bush's proposed budget, which includes broad cuts in domestic spending programs while calling for new tax cuts, "flies in the face of his re-election campaign that stressed family values and compassion," says AFT president Edward J. McElroy. The fiscal year 2006 budget, released Feb. 7, includes limits on food stamp eligibility; an end to a program that provides housing, education and employment services to the poor; energy assistance to help people pay their heating bills; and measures that reduce Medicaid payments to states. The budget "turns its back on children, the elderly and the most vulnerable while shifting the burden of assisting them to cash-strapped states," says McElroy in a statement. "His budget also irresponsibly masks the tremendous hidden costs of the administration's misguided scheme to privatize Social Security." The budget calls for an actual cut in education--the first in a decade. One in three programs slated for elimination is in education, notes McElroy, representing "a huge reversal in the federal government's commitment to education at a time when new, rigorous requirements for students and teachers need to be met." Read the complete story.