While the lion’s share of the budget — $227 million — is directed to preventing and combating terrorism and another $214 million has been allocated to fight violent crime, Gonzales has asked for an additional $25 million to fight child pornography and obscenity — two crimes Justice has lumped together.
“DOJ is committed to fighting child pornography and obscenity, protecting children from trafficking and preventing all forms of child exploitation,” a Justice spokesman said. “The department works with other law enforcement agencies to target, apprehend and prosecute child molesters and those who traffic in child pornography. The fiscal year 2008 budget provides program increases totaling $12.5 million for Attorney General Gonzales’ Project Safe Childhood initiative, which targets purveyors of child pornography and obscenity.”
The Justice Department budget is part of a $2.9 trillion budget submitted to Congress by President Bush.
The budget requires Congressional approval, and many in the Democratic majority have received the budget with hostility.
Some Democrats have called it “disingenuous” and “filled with debt and deception,” though much of the criticism centers on the continued funding of the Iraq war and proposed cuts in certain social services programs such as Medicare.