In Budget’s Fine Print, Real and Illusory Cuts

By ERIC LICHTBLAU and RON NIXON
NYT

WASHINGTON — Few financial problems have generated more public attention in the last few years than mortgage fraud, one of the triggers for the nation’s housing collapse. But even government officials seeking to combat a front-burner issue like that one are feeling the sting of the budget deal struck last Friday to avert a federal shutdown.

With the line-by-line details of the deal finally made public, budget documents show that a $20 million program at the Department of Housing and Urban Development meant to root out mortgage fraud is being reduced to zero.

That was just one of hundreds of budget reductions to emerge Wednesday, as agencies and groups relying on federal money scoured the fine print of the 459-page budget to determine which cuts would hurt the most — and which ones were more illusory than real.

A variety of organizations — including local police agencies and community service groups providing federally financed job training or housing assistance — found that the budget deal reached in Washington would cut deeply into their own budgets.

(More here.)