We triple funding for reading programs. We have got a big focus on early childhood development. In my budget, we double the Medicare budget by the year 2011. We introduced a new prescription drug program. We finished the job of doubling medical research at the National Institutes of Health by 2003.
Basic research gets big increases as well.
My budget pays for ambitious new programs to mobilize faith-based and community groups, which fight poverty and addiction. We provide housing vouchers to 34,000 additional low-income families, and assist 130,000 others with the downpayment on their first home. We support 1,200 new and expanded community health centers, to double the number of patients served in those important institutions. It's an ambitious agenda, and it doesn't come cheap. You know, when you hear all the litany of things we're spending money on, some people are beginning to wonder whatever happened to all the penny pinching Republicans.