It seeks sizable savings in government health care programs and puts the squeeze on much of the rest of government, but it would still generate near-record budget deficits over the next two years.

Even before receiving the document Monday, Democrats were attacking it for slashing programs to help the poor while protecting tax cuts for the wealthy.

"This is a budget that sticks it to the middle class, comforts the wealthy and has a set of priorities that are not the priorities of the American people," said Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D.

Democrats saw the plan as a continuation of failed policies that have seen the national debt explode under Bush. A projected 10-year surplus of $5.6 trillion when Bush took office was wiped out by the 2001 recession, the increased spending to fight terrorism and, Democrats contend, Bush's costly tax cuts.

Bush's spending blueprint sets the stage for what will probably be epic battles in the president's last year in office, as both parties seek to gain advantages with voters heading into the November elections.

Bush, who was the first president to propose a $2 trillion budget, back in 2002, will leave office as the first president to hit $3 trillion with a spending plan.

His blueprint for the budget year that begins next October projects huge deficits, around $400 billion for this year and next, more than double the 2007 deficit of $163 billion. Private economists believe the deficit could easily surpass the previous record in dollar terms of $413 billion set in 2004, especially if the country does go into a recession.

The sharp jump in the deficits reflects, in part, a proposed economic stimulus plan of around $145 billion. Bush is urging Congress to pass it quickly as a way of getting tax rebates to households this summer in hopes of preventing a full-blown recession.

As in past years, Bush's biggest proposed increases are in national security. Defense spending is projected to rise by about 7 percent, to $515 billion, and homeland security money by almost 11 percent, with a big gain for border security. Details on the budget were obtained through interviews with administration officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity until the budget's release.

The bulk of government programs for which Congress sets annual spending levels would remain essentially frozen at current levels. The president does shower extra money on some favored programs in education and to bolster inspections of imported food, following last year's high-profile recalls of tainted products coming from China.

Bush's spending proposal would achieve sizable savings by slowing the growth in the major health programs — Medicare for retirees and Medicaid for the poor. There the president will be asking for almost $200 billion in cuts over five years, about three times the savings he proposed last year. The savings would come from freezing payments for hospitals and other health care providers.

Congress rejected last year's effort and Democrats are predicting Bush's new proposal will meet the same fate.

Presidential candidate Barack Obama accused former President Bill Clinton of distorting his words as the Democratic race in South Carolina heated up on Monday.

Meanwhile, Republican presidential hopefuls kept their focus on economics as they began campaigning for the Jan. 29 primary in Florida.

Obama, who was edged out by the ex-president's wife Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Saturday caucuses in Nevada, had harsh words for Bill Clinton, who is beloved in many Democratic circles _ including among many blacks, who could be key to a win in South Carolina's weekend primary.

The former president "has taken his advocacy on behalf of his wife to a level that I think is pretty troubling" by making statement that are not supported by facts, Obama said in an interview broadcast Monday on ABC's "Good Morning America."

The Clinton campaign has suggested it would continue pointing out inconsistencies in Obama's record.

Republicans are preparing for delegate-rich Florida, where the race remains wide open despite John McCain's recent wins in South Carolina and New Hampshire. A win in Florida would afford the candidate a whopping 57 delegates and a huge jolt of energy in the run-up to Feb. 5, when 22 states hold nominating contests.

Clinton and Obama have been locked in a fierce battle for the party's nomination in a history-making campaign that pits a black man and a woman. Obama won the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses and Clinton emerged triumphant in New Hampshire, five days later.

Their campaign has vacillated between congenial exchanges, a dispute on race and, before Nevada's contest Saturday, charges of dirty politics. So far, no clear front-runner has emerged, making the Jan. 26 contest in South Carolina, where blacks make up about 50 percent of the Democratic electorate, particularly important going into the Feb. 5 de facto national primary.

Trailing candidate John Edwards is looking to make the Democratic contest a three-way race with a strong showing in South Carolina, which neighbors his home state of North Carolina.

Edwards got 4 percent of support in Nevada, compared with Clinton's 51 percent and Obama's 45 percent.

On Sunday, Obama took to the pulpit at Martin Luther King Jr.'s Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta on the eve of the federal holiday marking the civil rights hero's birth 79 years ago. He based his speech on King's quote that "Unity is the great need of the hour."

Obama is counting on blacks to stick with him in South Carolina to halt his losing streak in the last two state races, and his campaign has worked to overcome concerns among black voters that he would not be able to win an election in white America. He lost Nevada despite winning 83 percent of blacks, who made up 15 percent of the total vote.

Front-running Democrat Hillary Clinton, a New York senator seeking to be the first female president, won an effusive welcome at a mainly black Baptist church in snowy Waterloo, Iowa, where she criticized the Bush administration for failing to expand health care coverage and alienating foreign allies.

"Do we take a leap of faith and once again bind the wounds of those who hurt, create a country that we're proud of, assume the leadership and moral authority of the world that we should or will we continue to just slowly but surely fall backwards?" she said, also touching on the upcoming Christmas holiday.

Religion plays a big role in politics in the United States, where levels of belief and church attendance are much higher than in Europe.

Other issues weighing on the minds of voters in the run-up to the November 2008 presidential election include health care, immigration, the war in Iraq and a mortgage crisis.

Clinton's main rival, Sen. Barack Obama, also toured Iowa, bolstered by a new poll showing him alongside her in New Hampshire -- another early contest in the state-by-state process to nominate both parties' candidates for president.

Republican hopeful Rudy Giuliani, a survivor of prostate cancer, returned to the campaign trail in New Hampshire after being hospitalized overnight last week with what he said was a "headache worse than I've ever had."

"I feel great now, I feel terrific. I've been tested out, everything came back 100 percent," Giuliani, a former New York mayor, said on ABC News' "This Week" program, adding his doctor would address the episode after Christmas.

"There's always the issue of cancer, so I'm going to have him put out a statement and then, you know, make everyone really comfortable that I'm OK."

Giuliani's battle with prostate cancer prompted him to drop out of the 2000 Senate race in New York against Clinton.

OBAMA SURGES, GIULIANI SLIPS

Giuliani, who plays heavily on his leadership in New York after the September 11 attacks in 2001, has led national polls of Republican voters but trails in New Hampshire and Iowa, which holds the nation's first nomination contest on January 3.

In New Hampshire's primary vote on January 8, Giuliani is fighting to keep up with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Sen. John McCain of Arizona.

The ruling, in response to a legal watchdog group's suit, could shed light on the influence leaders like James Dobson of Focus on the Family have had on President George W. Bush's administration. It may also affect legal efforts to force the release of visiting records of convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff and other similar cases.

"We think that these conservative Christian leaders have had a very big impact," said Executive Director Melanie Sloan of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which filed the case.

"The White House doesn't want to talk about how much influence these leaders have, and we want to talk about how much they do have," she said.

Dobson is one of the most influential opinion leaders among conservative Christians who are at the heart of Bush's political base.

Others whose visiting records were sought included Family Research Council president Tony Perkins, Gary Bauer, who unsuccessfully sought the 2000 Republican presidential nomination, and Moral Majority co-founder Jerry Falwell, who died in last May.

U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth rejected as "misguided" the Secret Service's arguments that disclosing the records would reveal confidential policy deliberations.

The Secret Service is responsible for presidential security and clears visitors for entry to the White House and Cheney's official residence. It also argued that the records were not under its control but were protected presidential documents.