Leading Democrats Say Bush Budget Proposal Breaks Faith On ESEA

By Ben Wear

Washington

When the president and Congress begin to hash out the annual budget, it's not unlike a negotiation over a used car.

No one throws out a bottom-line number at the beginning, one low-balling it and the other shooting for the moon. The final number inevitably falls somewhere in between. So it was no surprise two weeks ago, when President Bush laid out his proposed fiscal 2003 federal budget, that his requested increase for discretionary education spending fell short of some congressional Democrats' dreams.

But two prominent Democrats—both of whom spent the previous month in something of a political embrace with Mr. Bush—charged vehemently last week that the president's first bid goes beyond canny dealing into the...