WASHINGTON — When President Bush sends an austere budget to Capitol Hill today, it will be received by lawmakers worried about the record deficit and eager to rein in spending, but nervous about how they can eliminate federal programs without suffering serious political consequences.

And those are just the Republicans.

"I think members, especially Republican members, went home for the election and heard that people are quite upset that we are running up these deficits," said Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., chairman of the Senate Budget Committee.

Nevertheless, few GOP lawmakers are optimistic about their ability to eliminate or substantially cut 150 domestic discretionary programs, a budget goal that Bush cited in his State of the Union address last week.

Bush's $2.5 trillion budget proposal would eliminate some funding for education, environmental protection and business development, while significantly increasing military and international spending, according to administration documents.

Overall, discretionary spending other than defense and homeland security would fall by nearly 1 percent, the first time in many years that funding for the major part of the budget controlled by Congress would actually go down, according to officials with access to the budget. Discretionary spending is spending other than on entitlement programs such as Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare.

The cuts are aimed at helping to meet Bush's goal of cutting the budget deficit in half by 2009. One out of every three of the targeted programs concerns education. Medicaid funding would be reduced significantly, and even major military-weapons programs would be scrapped to make more resources available for the war in Iraq.

"When the details come out and people say, 'You mean you're not increasing spending for our program?' it's going to be a tough budget," said Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn.

Vice President Dick Cheney, appearing on "Fox News Sunday," defended the proposed cuts. "It's not something we've done with a meat ax, nor are we suddenly turning our back on the most needy people in our society," he said.

The budget is a blueprint proposed by the administration; lawmakers in both chambers will spend much of the year haggling over which programs to fund and which to scale back. Republicans, who have long billed themselves as fiscal conservatives, say their constituents are leaving them feeling conflicted.

"We're getting a mixed message: Get it in balance, keep my taxes low and don't cut my programs," said Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore. "We're riding three horses in this circus."

The Bush administration predicts that the deficit will rise to a record $427 billion this year.

In his State of the Union address, Bush said his fiscal 2006 budget "stays on track to cut the deficit in half" by the time he leaves office in four years. But achieving that goal relies on where the budget math starts and stops, how things get counted and what gets left out.

It is the 2004 deficit that Bush is promising to cut in half by 2009, but he's not starting with the actual 2004 deficit of $412 billion. Instead, his benchmark is the projected $521 billion deficit that his Office of Management and Budget estimated a year ago, when the fiscal year was only four months old. Using half of that estimated figure, Bush's goal is to reach a deficit of $260.5 billion.

If he were to start with the actual 2004 figure, his goal would be a deficit of $206 billion — $54.5 billion less.

Finally, the budget that Bush sends to Congress will omit some serious deficit-raising items.

It does not include future expenses of the continuing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, nor does it include upfront transition costs of overhauling Social Security as Bush has proposed. The administration will submit a separate $80 billion supplemental request largely for Afghanistan and Iraq operations, which will be reflected in the budget charts, officials said, but war costs in future years will not be. Nor will the cost of Bush's Social Security plan, which would begin in 2009 and result in $754 billion in additional debt over its first five years.

Those omissions provide ammunition to Democrats who dispute Bush's math. "The administration's claim that it will cut the deficit in half by 2009 lacks credibility," said a report released last week by House Budget Committee Democrats. When the omitted items are included, along with the impact of making Bush's first-term tax cuts permanent, the report estimated, the government would rack up $6.1 trillion in deficit spending over the next decade.

Some top Bush priorities would find more funding despite the belt-tightening. The president's budget earmarks $3.2 billion for fighting AIDS around the world, and increases foreign operations and development aid by 17 percent, officials said. Bush hopes to spend $304 million to build more community health centers, particularly in rural areas. And the Defense Department would receive an extra $19 billion.

Still, the administration plans to cut costly weapons programs such as an Air Force advanced fighter plane, a stealthy Navy destroyer and the next generation of nuclear submarines. Bush's missile-defense program would likewise lose billions of dollars in funding.

On the domestic side, the budget would consolidate 18 Commerce Department community-development block-grant programs for a savings of $1.8 billion. It would slice law-enforcement grants to states from $2.8 billion to $1.5 billion. And it would cut 48 education programs totaling $4.3 billion, including $2.2 billion for high-school programs, mostly state grants for vocational education.

The budget includes no subsidy for Amtrak and would eliminate $20 million for the next generation of high-speed rail. Several Energy Department programs would be eliminated, as would $100 million in grants for land and water conservation.

The budget proposal would cut $94 million in grants for the Healthy Communities Access Program and phase out rural health grants, the documents said. Bush touted his commitment to such programs during his re-election campaign.

Some deficit hawks welcomed the hard-nosed approach. "With the deficits that we're now running, I'm glad the president is coming over with a very austere budget," Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said on ABC's "This Week." "I hope we in Congress will have the courage to support it."

Compiled from reports by the Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times.