President Bush sent Congress a $2.4 trillion spending plan yesterday that would slash next year’s funding for nearly half the federal government’s agencies while funneling large sums to the military and so-called anti-terrorism programs. The ranking Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee, Sen. Kent Conrad (N.D.) called it, “the most fiscally irresponsible budget in our nation’s history.”

Noticeably absent from Bush’s budget is money for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. White House budget director Joshua Bolten estimated that another $50 billion would be needed to cover those costs next year. The White House says it expects to cover the war costs with supplemental funds after next fall’s elections. Some analysts have pointed out that this $50 billion is not included in the deficit calculations. Democrats complained that the omission was yet another way the administration was trying to low-ball both the deficit and the cost of postwar Iraq.

The largest increase in discretionary spending is proposed for the Defense Department, where spending would rise from $375 billion this year to $402 billion. Funding of programs to promote homeland security would rise 9.7 percent, from $28 billion to $30 billion.

At times, the budget itself reads like campaign material for the Bush-Cheney reelection effort. It’s deepest cuts are targeted at environmental, educational and agriculture spending. It calls for the elimination or curtailing of some 128 federal programs. The budget would give Health and Human Services an extra $135 million for “biosurveillance” but would cut $400 million from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Environmental Protection Agency would see a 7.2 percent spending cut.

The reductions reach even into realms of government the White House has cited as domestic priorities, such as education and health care. For example, Bush highlighted a $250 million expansion of Labor Department job-training funds in his State of the Union address last month, but his budget would trim existing vocational education programs within the Education Department by $300 million.

Proposed cuts involve funding for dropout prevention programs, literacy programs for prisoners and an arts-in-education program. The department’s overall budget, however, would grow by 3 percent. The document shows that the budget would eliminate a Labor Department training program for migrant and seasonal farm workers, a Small Business Administration micro-loan program, and a Justice Department program to help state and local governments pay for “community policing” programs.

In places, the four volumes read like political documents. The opening pages borrow language from Bush fundraising speeches and outline “a record of accomplishment.” The glossy pages are scattered with images of the president, many of them in photographs with black or elderly Americans. The budget also draws greater attention to several old proposals popular with social conservatives, including grants to promote marriages, which the White House has advocated for two years.