2006 Budget: A Wakeup Call for Rural America

President Bush’s 2006 budget is mostly bad news for rural schools and communities. The good news is that both Republicans and Democrats are stepping up to the plate to fight budget cuts in areas that hurt rural communities. The bad news is that their support will not be enough if rural Americans don’t also step into the batters box.

The big picture is that the President cuts domestic discretionary funding while increasing spending for defense, international affairs, and homeland security. On the domestic side, the Department of Education's 2006 budget is $530 million less than it was in 2005. To make these cuts, the President's budget eliminates 48 education programs. These cuts represents about a third of all programs proposed for elimination.

The President can take credit for funding the newly created National Research Center on Rural Education Support. He also level funded the Rural Education Achievement Program at $170.6 million. This move forces me to take back some of what I've said about the administration's commitment to rural schools, but not all of it. REAP is still only funded at about half of what has been authorized. If REAP was fully funded it would represent only 0.5% of the Department of Education's budget. That doesn't seem like a big commitment.

The list of 48 programs targeted for elimination by the Department of Education is too long to report here, but you can get it on the Departments website. Almost all of them help rural schools in some way and it will be interesting to see which ones survive. At least one program targeted for elimination is supposed to serve rural schools but its loss would probably go unnoticed by the vast majority of rural educators. Whether or not it or any of the other 47 programs survives will depend on whether some lawmaker is willing to expend political capital to save it.

It's also important to put the Department of Education's budget into the larger context of how the rest of the budget affects rural communities and their schools. Not too well according to Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa). He identifies some of the other budget cuts that will hurt rural Americans:
• a 24% cut in grants for rural water and wastewater projects.
• a $40 million cut in Rural Business Enterprise grants.
• a 34% cut in broadband loan assistance.
• more than a 60% ($24.5 million) reduction in value-added grants to farmer-owned businesses.
• a $79 million reduction in the funding available for the Rural Business Investment Program.
• the Rural Community Development Initiative cut $6 million.
• the Community Facility Economic Impact Initiative Grants cut $18 million.
• the High Energy Cost Grants cut $28 million.
• a 30 percent, or $7 million, cut in grant program to fund childcare centers, fire trucks and community buildings.
• a $24 million cut in the Rural Housing and Economic Development program.

But it's Representative John Peterson (R-Pennsylvania) who, as Howard Cosell used to say, tells it like it is, "those who are currently advocating these draconian cuts would not be in office today if it weren't for rural America. These cuts disproportionately target essential programs in rural communities while turning a blind eye to the wasteful spending that is rampant in many big cities across the country. In our effort to cut the federal deficit, we should not erode progress that has been made in rural America by slashing already-strapped programs that fund rural health care, technical education, economic development, and other job-sustaining initiatives"

Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-Arkansas) joins in, “this should be a wake up call to the heartland of this country – many of whom supported President Bush’s re-election. These programs have huge impacts on the quality of life in our rural communities. From his recent proposal to privatize Social Security, to these devastating cuts in his budget– the President has made it abundantly clear that he’s going after working families in rural America. His approach is not balanced and I intend to fight these cuts all the way.”

It's morning rural America. Stop hitting the snooze button.