Bush to submit first $3 trillion budget

President Bush will submit to Congress today the nation's first $3 trillion budget. In it, he seeks to seal a legacy of promoting a strong defense to fight terrorism and of cutting taxes to spur the economy.

Democrats, who control Congress, are pledging fierce opposition to Bush's 2009 spending plan. Some highlights:

Deficits: The plan will claim deficits in the $400 billion range for this year and next, more than double the 2007 deficit of $163 billion. For the 2009 budget year, deficits are likely to rise higher than Bush predicts after additional war costs are added.

Defense: The Pentagon would get a $35 billion increase to $515 billion for core programs, about 7 percent, with war costs additional. The figure, adjusted for inflation, is the highest since World War II. An additional $21 billion would go to the Energy Department for nuclear weapons programs. A $70 billion "bridge fund" for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would give the next president time to consider options, with tens of billions of dollars more needed.

Domestic appropriations: These would be essentially frozen at current levels, with most services being cut after inflation and population growth are factored in.

Homeland security: Overall, the budget for homeland security programs will increase by almost 11 percent, with a 19 percent increase for border security and immigration enforcement efforts.

Diplomats: In a victory for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Bush wants to hire nearly 1,100 new diplomats to address severe staffing shortages and begin an effort to double the size of the State Department over the next decade.

Medicare and Medicaid: The programs will see almost $200 billion in cuts over the next five years, about three times the savings proposed last year but rejected by Congress. Much of the savings would come from freezing reimbursement rates for most health care providers for three years and from cutting payments to hospitals serving large numbers of the uninsured poor.

Education: Education programs overall would be frozen at $60 billion. Title I grants, the main source of federal funding for poor students, would rise about 3 percent.

Tax cuts: Bush would make his first-term tax cuts permanent while still claiming to get the budget into balance by 2012, three years after he leaves office.

Milestones: Bush's proposal would be the first budget to propose spending $3 trillion. The budget hit $2 trillion for the first time in 2002, also when Bush was in office, and reached $1 trillion for the first time in 1987 during the Reagan administration.

ASSOCIATED PRESS