From: Scott.Maxwell@bbs.oit.unc.edu (Scott Maxwell)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.drugs
Subject: AP story -- Drug budget battles
Summary: Not spending enough on the WoD? Martinez will zap your agency!
Date: 11 Apr 92 10:01:51 GMT
Organization: Extended Bulletin Board Service

Reprinted without permission from the Associated Press:

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4/5/92 14:47 Inches: 17.7 DAILY AM-Drug Budget Battles, Bjt,0671
 
Drug Control Office Gets Agencies to Increase Anti-Drug Funds
By CAROLYN SKORNECK
Associated Press Writer
	WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Office of National Drug Control Policy 
has waged intense, behind-the-scenes battles to force six recalcitrant 
Cabinet agencies to seek $115.3 million in additional funds for the war on 
drugs, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.
	The office's real power lies in its ability to expose agencies seeking 
what it believes is too little money to carry out the president's anti-drug 
strategy.
	But revealing such problems required a breach of the 
administration's normal reluctance to tell outsiders -- that is, Congress -- 
about family squabbles.
	Nevertheless, the drug control policy office threatened to do just that 
late last year after less drastic measures failed to persuade six departments 
to increase their anti-drug budget proposals for fiscal 1993.
	After the warning, the six increased their total budget requests by 
$115.3 million, most of that for drug demand reduction programs, 
according to the documents sent to the Senate Judiciary and House 
Government Operations committees by the office of ONDCP director Bob 
Martinez.
	Martinez said last week that the Bush administration had requested 
a total $12.7 billion in drug-related funding for fiscal 1993.
	Thus far, the office has not used its ultimate weapon: sending letters 
signed by Martinez to a department head declaring the department's drug-
war funding inadequate.
	Instead, it has fired warning shots.
	"We've threatened by sending over drafts of unsigned letters that 
would decertify agencies, and that got an answer," Bruce Carnes, 
ONDCP's director of planning, budget and administration, told a Senate 
panel last week. "There we've got definite big time power."
	Because the congressional committees requested the drafts as well as 
Martinez's signed letters certifying every department's final budget request 
as adequate, the threats to expose the reluctant drug warriors became, 
unintentionally, public.
	The documents show the secretaries of Education, Health and 
Human Services, Treasury, Housing and Urban Development, Veterans 
Affairs and Labor received draft letters.
	After receiving the letter, the Education Department boosted its 
proposal for Drug-Free Schools and Communities grants by $62.5 million.
	Other increases were:
	--Treasury, $14.9 million for IRS money-laundering investigations.
	--VA, $11.4 million for veterans' drug treatment.
	--Labor, $10 million for its Employment and Training Administration 
program.
	--HUD, $8.25 million for public housing drug elimination grants.
	--HHS, $8.2 million for the Administration for Children and Families 
and the Centers for Disease Control.
	Department representatives denied they were slackers in the war on 
drugs. Instead, they said they faced tight budget constraints and that the 
volleys between them and the drug policy office were part of the normal 
negotiating process.
	Mary Brunette, HUD's assistant secretary for public affairs, said the 
Office of Management and Budget told the department to keep its budget 
request 5 percent below that of current services plus inflation.
	"We determined to apply across the board, to all programs, a 5 
percent reduction," Brunette said. "It wasn't a matter of lack of 
commitment" to the public housing drug elimination program, which is 20 
times larger today than in 1989, she said.
	Labor spokesman Bob Zachariasiewicz said the funding dispute was 
"all part of the give and take" that always accompanies budget-making.
	Mark Barnes, counsel to HHS Secretary Louis Sullivan for drug 
abuse policy, shrugged off ONDCP's threat and the fact that Congress 
knows about the administration's bickering.
	"While the process is far from a perfect one, it seems to work as 
intended," Barnes said.
	ONDCP's Carnes said he understood that departments were hobbled 
by a budget agreement with Congress that left "very, very little money 
available. ... That meant we were cutting into bone, or muscle at least, from 
other programs."
	Congressional critics of the president's anti-drug budget have 
complained that too much money, about 70 percent, is spent for law 
enforcement and international efforts, leaving little for reducing demand 
for drugs through education and treatment.
	 AP-NC-04-05-92 1439EDT
 
 
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--
Scott Maxwell (CSMAXWEL@ECUVM1.BITNET or Scott.Maxwell@bbs.oit.unc.edu)

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