Drug Office's Budget Tactics Faulted

[flashl]

Source: Washington Post

Experts Note Difficulty in Tracking and Evaluating Priorities

Despite congressional demands for transparency, the Office of National Drug Control Policy has a murky budget that understates its emphasis on popular law enforcement efforts over treatment and prevention programs, budget and drug policy experts say.

In February, the White House requested $14.1 billion for drug control efforts in fiscal 2009, a 3.4 percent increase. Nearly two-thirds would go to law enforcement, interdiction efforts and programs to destroy drug crops abroad. Just over a third, or $4.9 billion, would fund treatment and prevention efforts.

"The federal government will continue to do its part to keep our young people safe, and I urge all Americans to do the same," President Bush said in a March 1 radio address.

But the White House has made the job harder, experts say. In 2002, the administration narrowed the way it counts federal anti-drug spending, which is scattered across programs in about two dozen agencies. As a result, billions of dollars spent by several agencies moved off of the drug control office's books.

The White House argued that the new budget method merely stripped out spending over which the drug control office had no influence, such as law enforcement grants that only minimally involved anti-drug efforts.
Washington Post

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/11/AR2008031102540_pf.html

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Let's see, the drug enforcement agency decides to spend more money on enforcement versus prevention is a surprise. Two-thirds of that budget is spent to control drugs in other countries to save our children here. 'We' are also surprised to learn of this admin's fiscal off books alchemy. Hearings on this matter will prove to be entertaining.

[High Plains]

1. The cops want even more money than they already get.

Bush is trying to zero out the Byrne Justice Action Grant (JAG) program that funds state and local multijurisdictional anti-drug task forces. OMB says the program can't justify itself. But the cops, aided and abetted by Democratic senators, are screaming "Meth!" and demanding the funding be restored. No more money for the cowboy narcs!

[Winterblues]

2. I would bet a years wages there is not one Agency in this Administration

that could withstand a Proper Audit. Not a single one. I bet even the Whitehouse housekeeping staff is shuffling money around somewhere..

[flashl]

3. The audits would be as entertaining as watching other forms of the circus of America. nt