State News

Johnson: Cuts affect Indians

| Wednesday, February 08, 2006

SIOUX FALLS (AP) - President Bush has proposed about $3.2 billion - an $80 million increase - for the Indian Health Service in his budget for fiscal 2007.

But the president also has proposed cuts for the Interior Department's Bureau of Indian Affairs, Indian education programs and Indian housing programs.

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Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., called the IHS increase "moderate." And Bush's budget proposal eliminates funding for the Urban Indian Health program, a cut of $33 million, he said.

Sioux Falls, Aberdeen and Pierre have benefited from this program, Johnson said in a news release.

The $2.3 billion Bush requested for the BIA is $65 million lower than current funding, according to Johnson. And Indian education construction was cut $117 million from the current $307 million level, he said.

Other Indian education and housing programs also were targeted for cuts, according to Johnson, a member of the Senate Budget and Appropriations committees.

Bush's budget is the most austere since the Reagan era as the president seeks to build upon his spending-cut success of last year, when Congress advanced a budget bill squeezing $39 billion through the end of the decade from the Medicaid health-care program for the poor and disabled, the Medicare and myriad other programs. Bush also proposes to cut spending by $1 billion on farm commodity programs.

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