LA Times article on Jack Abramoff's misuse of charities. It details how Abramoff misused the charities that he associated with.

Yesterday the Office of Management and Budget detailed its plan to terminate or reduce funding for 141 federal discretionary programs, saying that these cuts could free up to $14.7 billion in spending. The document, which also details Bush's plan to cut $71.1 billion from mandatory programs over five years, can be seen here.

President Bush, in his FY07 budget proposal released on Monday, asked for $7.65 billion over ten years in tax incentives for charitable giving. The incentives include an IRA charitable rollover proposal. The President’s IRA rollover proposal would allow people over the age of 65 to donate money from qualifying individual retirement accounts to charity without penalty. This differs from the IRA rollover provision included in S. 2020 — a person must be age 70 ½ to take advantage of the Senate-passed provision.

The budget reconciliation bill passed by the House on February 1 was apparently different from the bill that was sent to President Bush for his signature. The discrepancy between the bills involves a provision that was intended to allow Medicare beneficiaries to purchase home-oxygen devices as opposed to paying endless rental fees. However, a clerical error made during the enrollment of the bill changed the policy to apply to practically all medical equipment. House and Senate aides are pointing fingers at each other for this change.