Punishing America's Families—the President's Misplaced Priorities and Irresponsible and Unfair Policies

	The Bush Administration's FY 2006 Budget Worker Safety and Health Programs Wage and Hour and Federal Contractor Worker Protection Programs Labor Department Programs to Audit, Investigate and Prosecute Unions Trade Enforcement Programs to Assist Manufacturers and Manufacturing Employees International Labor Affairs Bureau

President George W. Bush's fiscal year (FY) 2006 budget punishes America's working families for his own misdeeds—his stubborn insistence on preserving and expanding tax breaks that mostly benefit America's wealthiest families. Unless checked by the U.S. Congress, the result of the president's misplaced priorities and irresponsible and unfair policies will produce enormous suffering for the most vulnerable of our citizens.

America's working families already are struggling to maintain living standards in a labor market that has not fully recovered from the last recession.

• There are still not enough jobs to meet the needs of America's workers. Employers are not adding enough jobs to significantly cut unemployment, lure discouraged workers back into the labor force and keep up with population growth. Though overall employment has just regained pre-recession levels, we still have more than 700,000 fewer jobs in the private sector than when the recession began.
  
  
• Job quality has declined. Wages have not grown for three years. We lost nearly 3 million manufacturing jobs in the past four years alone, and last month, manufacturers shed another 25,000 jobs even as factory output increased.
  
  
• Health care is eroding. The number of uninsured Americans has grown each year since 2000, while the number with job-based health coverage has fallen and workers' contributions to health care premiums, especially for family coverage, have skyrocketed. Today, 45 million Americans are uninsured; most are in working families.
  
  
• Guaranteed pensions are on the endangered list. Fewer than half of today's workers have job-based pensions. One in four workers with access to 401(k) savings plans does not participate in them, and only a tiny sliver of individuals in these plans—around five percent—makes the maximum allowable contribution. Savings in 401(k) or IRA plans are less than $10,000 for roughly half of the households nearing retirement.

Instead of proposing a budget that will create and retain good jobs, make health care more affordable and build secure retirements, Bush wants Congress to make deep cuts in programs all Americans rely on and that provide an indispensable backstop of economic and health security for vulnerable children and seniors, the disabled and the poor. Rather than solving problems for America's workers and their families, the Bush budget makes these problems worse, further threatening economic security for families:

• The Bush budget gives a cold shoulder to Americans worried about trade and the ongoing loss of good jobs. In real dollars, Bush wants to cut trade enforcement by roughly 5 percent ($7 million) over last year's funding. And even though China engages in egregious trade violations that, in recent years, contributed to the loss of nearly half-a-million job opportunities for America's workers, Bush also wants to eliminate a China-specific trade enforcement and compliance program that Congress has mandated twice. In addition, despite the loss of millions of factory jobs, Bush proposes a 60 percent funding cut for the Manufacturing Extension Partnership, a nationwide program with a proven track record in helping manufacturers modernize, increase productivity and create and retain jobs.
  
  
• Bush's budget will pit workers needing assistance against each other. Altogether, the Bush budget calls for more than $550 million in real dollar cuts in the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) and the Employment Service (ES) programs from 2005 funding levels. Since taking office, Bush has asked Congress to slash nearly $2 billion in real dollars from WIA and ES programs. Bush also wants to cut the Trade Adjustment Assistance program that retrains laid-off workers, even as American corporations continue to export jobs overseas, and to eliminate the Employment Service, a program whose sole mission is to match the jobless with jobs. Unemployed workers and poor kids should not be in competition with each other.

Bush's budget does nothing to restore eroding health care benefits for working families. Despite soaring health care costs for employers and workers alike and huge increases in states' Medicaid spending, the Bush budget does nothing to shore up employer-based health care, which serves roughly two-thirds of insured Americans, or to ease Medicaid burdens for the states. Instead, Bush wants to expand Health Savings Accounts, increasing workers' out-of-pocket health care costs, and to institute new health care tax credits, inducing even more employers to scale back coverage. Bush also calls for slashing Medicaid funding for states by $45 billion, imposing enormous new burdens, just as states are finally digging out of deep budget holes, and threatening health care for many, including poor seniors and the children of low wage workers. And under the Bush budget, veterans' health care funding will be more than 16 percent lower in 2010 than it is today.

• Retirement "insecurity" takes center stage in the Bush budget. In addition to pushing for Social Security changes that are radical, risky and expensive, Bush's pension funding proposals penalize workers for their employers' underfunding of pension plans. Bush wants to cut federal pension guarantees, outlaw benefits that protect workers in the event of a plant shutdown and restrict the benefits workers earn at companies with financial difficulties. In addition, the Bush proposals jeopardize the entire defined benefit pension system by diverting $12 billion that could be used to fund pensions at financially weak companies into sharply higher premiums paid to the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation and imposing conditions that likely will drive many healthy companies away from providing defined benefit pensions at all.
  
  
• Children lose big under the Bush budget. The president proposes to slash more than a half billion dollars in Education Department funding and to eliminate 48 department programs, one-third of the total number of programs he wants to end. Proposed cuts in child care funding would eliminate assistance for 300,000 children by 2009. And cuts in the food stamp program would end aid for as many as 300,000 individuals, most of whom are in low-income working families with children.

President Bush and his administration rationalize this tough love approach to the budget as essential fiscal discipline designed to achieve deficit reduction. But in truth, the president's budget is more an exercise in fiscal fiction than in honest and disciplined fiscal stewardship. At the very moment Bush asks working families to make health care, education, retirement security and job training sacrifices, he willfully refuses to "discipline" the single largest culprit in our budget crisis—his millionaire tax cuts—and he willingly seeks to swell the nation's debt more, with proposals to extend tax cuts and to privatize Social Security. In fact, Bush does not even address the long-term costs of these two huge deficit drivers in his budget, or factor in costs of future operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, estimated to be at least $80 billion this year alone.

Real truth in budgeting and genuine concerns for fiscal stewardship would demand forthrightness absent from the Bush budget. A budget that leveled with the American people would tell them that:

First, President Bush's tax cuts are the single greatest reason for the nation's spiraling budget deficits. According to Congressional Budget Office data, the Bush tax cuts account for nearly half of the increase in the nation's deficit since 2001. The tax cuts' share of the deficit is three times larger than the share caused by new spending on domestic programs. Making these tax cuts permanent, as Bush proposes, will add $10 trillion to the deficit over 20 years.

Unlike the budget cuts Bush now wants, which fall heavily on low- and moderate-income Americans, the budget-busting tax cuts Bush has pushed through overwhelmingly benefit the nation's richest. In 2004, 60 percent of the benefit from the Bush tax cuts went to the 20 percent of households with average annual incomes exceeding $200,000.

Second, although Congress should address Social Security's funding problems, Bush's answer—privatizing Social Security—is a radical approach that will gut Americans' retirement security and cost the nation a bundle. Privatizing Social Security would require cuts in guaranteed benefits for all future retirees. Equally troubling for the nation's fiscal health, setting up private investment accounts would explode the deficit. Privatizing Social Security would add nearly $5 trillion in new national debt over the first 20 years the system is in effect, putting us deeper in hock to such foreign governments as China and Japan. Moreover, although President Bush claims privatizing Social Security would not affect workers or retirees older than 55, the budgetary strains resulting from privatization would create enormous pressure to raise taxes or cut spending—including spending on benefits for today's older workers and retirees.

The bottom line on President Bush's budget is that it punishes America's workers and their families for the president's own misdeeds—his stubborn insistence on preserving and expanding tax breaks that mostly benefit the very wealthy. The budget most hurts America's working families who can least afford cuts in programs we all rely on in order to preserve extravagant tax breaks for the wealthiest among us. And instead of putting the nation back on surer fiscal footing, Bush's budget policies and priorities will worsen the nation's financial situation.

We hope Congress has the courage and decency to reject the president's shameful attempt to pass the buck for budget problems to America's families and will instead place the blame and fix the solution squarely where it belongs—on the president's tax cuts. It is dishonest to blame budget problems on programs that serve all Americans when their greatest source is tax cuts that benefit relatively few. It is fundamentally wrong to balance the federal budget on the backs of children, retirees, the poor and people with disabilities in order to save tax breaks for millionaires.

Worker Safety and Health Programs

Bush Administration's Proposed 2006 Budget

Worker Safety and Health Programs

Overview
President Bush's FY 2006 budget reduces the federal government's commitment to protecting worker safety and health. The funding levels proposed for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) and National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) are insufficient to maintain current program activities of these agencies.

For FY 2006, the Bush administration has proposed these funding levels:

• $467 million for OSHA;
• $280 million for MSHA; and
• $286 million for NIOSH.

Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) ($ in millions)

• The FY 2006 budget proposes $280 million in funding for MSHA, compared with $279.2 appropriated in FY 2005.
  
  
• Adjusting for inflation, the FY 2006 proposed MSHA budget represents a $4.9 million cut in real-dollar terms from FY 2005 appropriations.
  
  
• The Bush administration has proposed a cut in MSHA's program for standards development (from $2.3 million in FY 2005 to $2.0 million in FY 2006) and cuts in program evaluation and program administration. Like OSHA, no new major safety and health rules are planned at MSHA. Instead, many important safety and health rules have been blocked or withdrawn.
  
  
• Funding requested for enforcement covers inflation increases in these programs. For coal enforcement activities, $118 million is requested for FY 2006, compared with $115.4 million appropriated in FY 2005.
  
  
• For metal/non-metal enforcement activities, $69 million is requested, compared with $66.7 appropriated in FY 2005.
  
  
• Since taking office in 2001, the Bush administration has reduced MSHA staff by 170 positions, from 2,357 Full Time Equivalents (FTEs) in FY 2001 to 2,187 FTEs proposed for FY 2006.
  

National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) ($ in millions)

• For FY 2006, the Bush administration has proposed a $286 million budget for NIOSH—$199 million for program activity and $87 million to fund the National Occupational Research Agenda (NORA). This funding request is similar to the level of funds appropriated for NIOSH in FY 2005 ($285.4 million), but adjusted for inflation represents a $5.1 million cut in real-dollar terms.

Wage and Hour and Federal Contractor Worker Protection Programs

The Bush administration's FY 2006 budget requests a cut in inflation-adjusted dollars for the Wage and Hour Division (WHD) overall and a very small increase in funding for the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP).

The FY 2006 budget for the U.S. Department of Labor's entire Employment Standards Administration, which includes the WHD and OFCCP along with several other Labor Department agencies, proposes a 162-employee increase in the number of full-time equivalent positions (FTEs), bringing the total to 4,282 FTEs. It appears that all of the additional FTEs requested are for the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program (114) and the Office of Labor-Management Standards (48). WHD and OFCCP staffing would be cut over FY 2001 levels and FY 2005 requested levels.

Wage and Hour: Basic Labor Standards Enforcement

The WHD enforces basic worker protection laws that cover virtually every American workplace and apply to nearly all workers. Enforcement responsibilities include the nation's minimum wage, overtime, child labor and other employment standards under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the Family and Medical Leave Act, the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act, certain provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act and other basic worker protection statutes.

As the labor force grows each year, as the economy shifts more toward service-based industries and as wage and hour violations proliferate, more—not fewer—resources should be devoted to enforcement. The FY 2006 budget request for the WHD is $198.4 million, a slight increase ($2.9 million) in current dollars over the FY 2005 appropriation but a real dollar cut ($1.1 million) when adjusted for inflation. In addition, the request for 1,346 FTEs in FY 2006 represents a steady decline in staffing—a 12 percent cut since FY 2001 (when staffing was at 1,528 FTE employees).

Wage and Hour: Comparison of FY 2001 and FY 2005 Appropriations
and FY 2006 Budget Request
($ in millions)

The Labor Department says it intends to devote more funding in FY 2006 to the WHD's new "Overtime Security Task Force" and "Off the Clock Initiative" and to expanded enforcement of its "Youth Rules" initiative. In addition, more resources would go into increasing assistance to employers to secure voluntary compliance. Given the overall real dollar cut the Wage and Hour Division is absorbing, it is unclear what functions will be reduced in order to accommodate the expanded activities the Department of Labor describes.

Last year witnessed the largest rollback of workers' overtime protections in the history of the FLSA, as the Bush administration moved ahead with regulatory changes that expand the white-collar exemptions from overtime coverage. Millions of workers lost their right to overtime pay as a result of these new regulations. The FY 2006 Bush budget proposes an even greater unraveling of overtime rights, calling for adoption of "comp time" and "flex time" legislation that would permit substitution of time off for overtime pay and would replace the 40-hour workweek with an 80-hour work period for purposes of computing overtime eligibility. The FLSA's 40-hour workweek is the only legislated mandate that discourages excessive hours of work for American workers and ensures fair pay for longer work hours. Replacing existing requirements with comp time and flex time would cut workers' pay, encourage employers to impose even longer hours and more overtime and undermine the 40-hour workweek, one of the nation's most family-friendly workplace policies. The proposed changes are completely unnecessary: The FLSA already permits many forms of work schedule flexibility; its only constraint is the requirement of overtime pay for hours in excess of 40. If the administration really wants to give workers greater flexibility and more time for their families, it should expand overtime protections, not weaken them with a scheme that would operate primarily to enhance flexibility and save money for employers.

Commendably, the Labor Department's FY 2006 budget calls for increased civil penalties for violations of wage and hour and related laws. We agree these penalties should be increased, which will require congressional action in most cases, and urge the Bush administration to work aggressively for these changes.

OFCCP: Federal Contractor Equal Employment Opportunity

The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) is responsible for administering a range of laws and executive orders that prohibit employment discrimination and require affirmative action by businesses contracting with the federal government. Collectively, these laws ban discrimination based on race, sex, religion, color, national origin, disability or veteran status.

Bush proposes to fund OFCCP at $82.1 million in FY 2006. The FY 2006 proposal is a slight increase over the FY 2005 appropriation but a real dollar cut of $3 million from the beginning of President Bush's first term in FY 2001. The budget proposes 691 FTE employees for FY 2006, a 15 percent staffing cut since FY 2001, when OFCCP had 813 FTE employees.

OFCCP: Comparison of FY 2001 and FY 2005 Appropriations
and FY 2006 Budget Request($ in millions)

Labor Department Programs to Audit, Investigate and Prosecute Unions

Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS)

The FY 2006 budget proposal of $48.8 million would provide a $7.1 million increase in funding for OLMS. This represents a 17 percent increase from FY 2005 (a 14.6 percent increase in real dollars) and an increase of 60 percent from the beginning of the first Bush administration in FY 2001 (a 43.1 percent increase in real dollars). The FY 2006 budget requests $5 million to hire an additional 48 new auditors, bringing the OLMS FY 2006 budget request to 384 FTEs. This would be an increase of 94 positions since FY 2001, a one-third increase in FTEs. The department also requests an additional $1 million to establish "union advisory services" to advise unions on how to comply with the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA). The request for more funding and staff comes in the wake of the department's implementation of new and very burdensome union reporting and requirements under the LMRDA.

The proposed OLMS budget also seeks authority to impose civil monetary penalties on unions and others that fail to make timely filings of their financial reports. The department says its intent is to enhance compliance, not penalize inadvertent lapses in filing.

Office of Inspector General (OIG)

The budget proposal for FY 2006 would increase OIG funding by $1.9 million dollars, to $71.1 million, up from $69.2 million in FY 2005. The FY 2006 proposal represents a rise of 16.4 percent since FY 2001, in dollars adjusted for inflation. The FY 2006 budget would maintain the number of OIG Full Time Equivalent (FTE) positions at 468, unchanged from FY 2005. However, this number of FTEs represents a 59 FTE increase over the staffing levels for FY 2001, a jump of 14.4 percent.

Trade Enforcement

Trade Enforcement: Comparison of FY 2005 Actual Appropriation (Current and Real Dollars)
and FY 2006 Budget Request
(U.S. $ millions)

The administration's FY 2006 budget calls for a reduction in funding for trade enforcement, just when America's workers are most in need of a much more aggressive enforcement stance to combat unfair trade practices and support American jobs.

• The Market Access and Compliance unit of the Commerce Department's International Trade Administration, which monitors foreign country compliance with international trade agreements and identifies violations, basically would be held flat.
  
  
• The Import Administration of the Commerce Department's International Trade Administration, which investigates anti-dumping and countervailing duty cases brought under our domestic trade laws, would be cut by 5 percent in real terms.
  
  
• The U.S. Trade Representative is responsible for representing the United States in cases brought at the World Trade Organization and other international trade forums. Its budget would be cut by 7 percent in real terms.

All together, the administration's budget would trim funding at agencies with responsibility for trade enforcement by 5 percent in inflation-adjusted dollars. These cuts would hamper the ability of the agencies to address violations of international and domestic trade rules just as low-priced imports are flooding the U.S. market. As a result, foreign firms would enjoy even more latitude to undercut America's workers and firms through unfair trade practices, increasing the trade deficit and destroying more good jobs.

This year's proposed cut of trade enforcement funds caps four years of failed trade enforcement by the Bush administration. Since entering office in 2001, the Bush administration has refused to enforce effectively domestic trade laws and failed to pursue aggressively our rights under international trade agreements. Numerous petitions to enforce our domestic trade laws have been rejected by the administration despite their merits, and the United States has filed only 12 complaints at the World Trade Organization in the last four years—a marked decline from the 62 complaints filed by the United States from 1997 to 2000 by the previous administration. Even when violators of our trade laws are identified and sanctioned, sometimes those violators still are allowed to escape the remedies imposed on them. In fact, our customs system failed to collect more than $260 million in duties owed on goods dumped into the country last year.

The administration's refusal to enforce the trading rights of American workers and producers has contributed to our ballooning trade deficit. When foreign governments and producers are allowed to violate trade rules with impunity, more underpriced goods flood into our market and more barriers to our exports persist, undercutting domestic producers who do play by the rules. Since President Bush took office, our trade deficit has jumped by more than 67 percent: It exploded from $358 billion in 2001 to more than $600 billion in 2004. As our trade deficit grows and the United States buys more from abroad than it sells, America's workers lose more good jobs. The deepening trade imbalance has been a major factor in the loss of more than 2.7 million manufacturing jobs since 2001. If allowed to grow unchecked, the trade deficit will continue to cost jobs and undermine economic growth, as we are forced to borrow more and more from foreign governments to finance the growing gap between what we consume and what we produce.

Rather than enact policies to reduce the unsustainable trade deficit through more aggressive trade enforcement and reformed trade rules, the administration has chosen to expand the flawed trade agreements that contribute to our deficit and has proposed actually reducing the funding dedicated to trade enforcement. This year's budget request is another disturbing reminder of the administration's abandonment of American producers and workers as they struggle to compete in an increasingly unregulated and imbalanced global economy.

Trade Enforcement for China

Trade Enforcement for China: Comparison of FY 2004 and FY 2005
Actual Appropriation (Current and Real Dollars)
and FY 2006 Budget Request
(U.S. $ millions)

The administration's FY 2006 budget calls for eliminating special funding set-asides for trade compliance and enforcement activities with regard to China. China is the country with which we have the single biggest bilateral trade deficit—in 2004, the deficit with China passed $150 billion, setting another annual record. According to the Economic Policy Institute, this surging deficit with China cost U.S. workers 469,000 jobs and job opportunities between 2001 and 2003.

An important factor affecting our severely imbalanced trade relationship with China is the ability of Chinese firms and the Chinese government to violate flagrantly both international and U.S. trade rules with impunity. Through massive repression of basic workers' rights, manipulation of its currency, disregard for intellectual property protections and illegal subsidies, among other actions, the Chinese government is able to drive down prices and undercut producers in the United States and abroad.

In the face of these abuses, the Bush administration has refused to take advantage of international dispute resolution or enforce domestic trade laws against China. The Bush administration only filed its first case against China in the World Trade Organization in 2004, after admitting that WTO rules were being flagrantly violated since China's entry into the organization. At the same time, the administration has rejected petitions under U.S. trade law to address China's violations of workers' rights and the undervaluing of its currency, without even bothering to investigate the petitions on their merits. The administration also has refused to enforce the China-specific safeguard and has proposed moving toward eliminating the special procedures that apply to China in anti-dumping cases.

Out of deep concern over China's unfair trade practices and the harm they cause to America's firms and workers, Congress set aside specific funds for trade compliance and enforcement activities with regard to China. In both FY 2004 and 2005, Congress appropriated $3 million for the International Trade Administration's newly created Office of China Compliance and $2 million for the U.S. Trade Representative to administer the China-specific safeguard and the special valuation rules for nonmarket economies that apply to China in anti-dumping cases. Yet the administration sees no need to focus trade enforcement resources on China, and has proposed eliminating these set-asides for China enforcement in its FY 2006 budget. If the administration is allowed to escape congressional directives and exercise its own discretion over funding for China enforcement activities, it once again will be American producers and workers who pay the price.

Trade Law Repeal

The Bush administration's FY 2006 budget once again calls for eliminating congressional instructions to seek a negotiated solution at the World Trade Organization to a dispute over the Countervailing Duty and Subsidy Offset Act (CDSOA). In effect, the elimination of this instruction would open the door to repealing the CDSOA in response to WTO complaints.

The CDSOA provides American companies and workers with an important safeguard against unfair trade practices. When foreign producers violate our trade laws by dumping their goods into the United States below market price or exploiting government subsidies to undercut U.S. production, the U.S. government can impose additional import duties on these products to remedy the trade law violation and to re-balance the playing field for American firms and workers. The CDSOA allows U.S. workers and producers harmed by unfair trade practices to access the funds generated by these import duties. They can use the funds to finance their adjustment costs, worker training and health care and pension benefits. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been distributed under the program, some of it directly to unions for programs to aid their members who have lost jobs to unfair trade.

The WTO has ruled that the CDSOA violates international trade rules, and eight foreign countries are threatening to impose sanctions on the United States if the law is not repealed. Rather than stand up to defend the law in the WTO and insist on a negotiated solution with other countries, it appears the Bush administration will push for a unilateral repeal of the law. In fact, the 2006 budget marks the third time in a row the administration has asked Congress to repeal its instruction to seek a negotiated solution to the CSDOA challenge in its annual budget.

Repealing the CDSOA would be a slap in the face to American workers who are losing hundreds of thousands of jobs a year to bad trade deals and offshore outsourcing. Not only has the program offered some badly needed assistance to workers harmed by unfair trade, it also has helped expose the failures of our broken customs system, which fails to collect millions in duties owed on dumped goods each year. Rather than fix these gross enforcement failures and address the underlying unfair trade practices that destroy good jobs, the Bush administration once again has chosen to put our trade laws—and the American jobs they support—up on the chopping block.

Programs to Assist Manufacturers and Manufacturing Employees Retirement Security

The Bush administration FY 2006 budget dramatically reduces funding for manufacturing-specific research and development and technical assistance programs, cutting the Department of Commerce's Manufacturing Extension Partnership (now called the Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership (HMEP)), the Advanced Technology Program (ATP) and the Department of Energy's Industrial Technologies Program.

Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership (HMEP)

MEP is an agency within the Department of Commerce's National Institute of Standards and Technology, created by the Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act (Public Law 100-418) of 1988. HMEP oversees a nationwide network of not-for-profit centers in nearly 350 locations. The centers, located in all 50 states and Puerto Rico, provide small- and medium-sized manufacturers with the help they need to succeed and are funded by federal, state, local and private resources.

Each center works directly with area manufacturers to provide expertise and services tailored to their most critical needs, ranging from process improvements and worker training to business practices and applications of information technology. Centers often help small firms overcome barriers in locating and obtaining private-sector resources.

Since its beginning, the program has assisted more than 149,000 firms. In a nationwide survey of clients served from October 2002 through September 2003, companies reported that, as a result of program services, they created or retained 50,315 jobs; increased sales by nearly $1.5 billion; retained sales of $2.638 billion; realized $686 million in cost savings; and invested $912 million in modernization, including plant and equipment, information systems and workforce and training.

The Bush administration repeatedly has sought to eviscerate, if not eliminate, program funding. Congress has failed to back these cuts, but the president's FY 2006 once again seeks deep cuts for HMEP.

Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership
($ in millions)

In inflation-adjusted dollars, HMEP's budget was relatively stable through FY 2003, then was cut by more than half in FY 2004 and was restored by Congress to its earlier level in FY 2005. The administration's FY 2006 request once again would cut the program to its bare bones.

Advanced Technology Program (ATP)

Like HMEP, ATP is an agency in NIST and was created by the Trade Act of 1988. ATP's purpose is to help bridge the gap between the research lab and marketplace, stimulating economic growth through innovation. In partnerships with the private sector, ATP provides early-stage investment with the goal of accelerating the development of innovative technologies that promise significant commercial payoffs and widespread benefits to the nation.

As with HMEP, the Bush administration has targeted ATP for elimination. Despite these efforts, Congress has maintained ATP at a healthy funding level, between $195 million and $216 million in FY 2006 real dollars. However, ATP lost a quarter of its funding between FY 2004 and FY 2005. The Bush FY 2006 budget once again proposes to eliminate ATP.

Advanced Technology Program
($ in millions)

Industrial Technologies

The Department of Energy's Industrial Technologies Program has been a popular industry program since the 1980s. The program's primary focus is to fund shared research in critical technology areas in partnership with industry. Its main initiative is the Industries of the Future (IOF) program, which encourages the most energy-intensive industries to develop a strategic vision and a "technology roadmap" to help achieve that vision. The IOF program develops such technologies as sensors and controls, combustion and advanced industrial materials, which contribute to significant energy benefits in multiple industries.

The Bush administration has cut back the Industrial Technologies Programs steadily. In real-dollar terms, the program suffered a 12 percent loss between FY 2004 and FY 2005. In FY 2006, the Bush administration has proposed cutting the program another 36 percent in real terms compared with its FY 2005 level, or 43 percent less than its FY 2004 level.

Industrial Technologies Program
($ in millions)

International Labor Affairs Bureau

ILAB: Comparison of FY 2001 and FY 2005 Actual Appropriations
(Current Dollars and Real Dollars) and FY 2006 Budget Request
(U.S. $ millions)

The International Labor Affairs Bureau (ILAB) is responsible for the U.S. Department of Labor's key overseas initiatives on such issues as protecting workers' rights abroad, HIV/AIDS and international labor. For FY 2006, the administration is proposing to fund ILAB at only $12 million, compared with $93.2 million appropriated for 2005. This translates into a reduction of more than $80 million, or a real dollar cut of 87 percent. It is a whopping 93 percent cut in real dollars from ILAB's FY 2001 appropriation.

The Bush FY 2006 budget would devastate ILAB, eliminating or drastically cutting vital programs, including:

• The International Labor Organization (ILO) program to promote its Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, which reaffirms the universal right of all workers to organize and bargain collectively, to refuse forced labor, to reject child labor and to work free from discrimination. The United States has been the largest contributor to this program.
  
  
• The ILO's Child Education initiative and the ILO's International Program on the Elimination of Child Labor (IPEC) would be decimated by these cuts. The U.S. contribution to these programs equals all other countries' contributions combined.
  
  
• International workplace-based education programs to combat HIV/AIDS also would suffer, eliminating a crucial pillar of the global HIV/AIDS effort.

The Bush administration has sought major cuts in ILAB funding in every budget it has submitted to Congress. In recognition of ILAB's central role in improving living standards for workers around the world, Congress routinely has funded ILAB at levels well above the president's requests, though still significantly below the funding levels ILAB had achieved before Bush took office. The administration's persistent efforts to gut the program have succeeded in netting a major reduction in funding (a 42.5 percent decrease in real terms between FY 2001 and FY 2005), and the requests send a powerful message about the White House's indifference to international workers' rights.

This year's ILAB defunding proposal is troubling particularly in the context of ongoing efforts by the administration to pass a new free trade agreement with Central America and the Dominican Republic. U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick has assured members of Congress that the agreement's weak labor provisions and the egregious labor rights records of the countries in the region can be mitigated by aggressive bilateral labor rights assistance from the United States. But if overall labor assistance funding is gutted as severely as the administration proposes, it will be impossible to even maintain labor assistance to the region, much less increase funding to the levels promised by the free trade agreement's promoters.

International Humanitarian and Development Aid

International Development Aid: Comparison of FY 2004 and FY 2005
Actual Appropriation (Current and Real Dollars) and FY 2006 Budget Request
(U.S. $ billion)