Bush thanks Kansas by chopping $3 billion out of funding for the state

I planned to work on a newspaper column and ignore my blog, but today I happened upon a new, rather terrifying, report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

If the Center’s estimates and my math and understanding of the report are correct, President Bush has proposed slashing about $3 billion out of federal funding for the state of Kansas over the next five years. The Bush plan would cut $183 billion out of federal funding for education and social services for the entire country, the report says.

Those apparent cuts would suck federal money from children, the elderly and the needy in a state that has always voted to support Bush. If approved by Congress, the Bush cuts, among many other things, would apparently include:

* $78.1 million from K-12 schools
* $69.7 million from vocational and adult education
* $18.1 million from the Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children
* $41 million from the Community Development Block Grant program
* $16.3 million for Low Income Home Energy Assistance

Among the center’s other estimates are that from 800 to 1,100 Head Start slots would be taken away from Kansas. An estimated 5,100 elderly Kansans would be losing food assistance from one program, according to the report.

Where did this information come from? The center reports:

This analysis uses Administration materials that were not widely distributed — including a key Office of Management and Budget (OMB) computer run that apparently was released inadvertently — to show the multi-year impact of the proposed cuts on a number of important domestic discretionary programs.

I call on my fellow bloggers and former colleagues in the mainstream media: Check this out. Am I missing something, or is this Bush’s version of a “thank you” to the people who have supported him for so long?