In last night's State of the Union address, President Bush pledged to restrain "the spending appetite of the federal government". He vowed to press Congress to hold the growth rate of discretionary spending below the rate of inflation and to fully extend his first-term tax cuts. Other administration officials have indicated that the discretionary spending affected is non-defense or non-domestic security related.

Specifically, he said his FY2006 budget would cut or eliminate "more than 150 government programs". The domestic discretionary portion of the budget currently amounts to only 16% of the overall budget, limiting lawmaker's ability to save large sums of money through cuts.

Bush's call to renew the tax cuts passed in the first-term will have long term budget implications. Currently most of the recently enacted tax cuts are set to expire before 2010. Extending the cuts would impact many of the existing budget projections.