Many people who follow budgets closely doubt much deficit reduction is in the offing. Speaking especially about the proposed freeze in most domestic programs, Stanley E. Collender, who writes an annual impartial guide to the federal budget, said, "It is unrealistic to expect Congress to march in lockstep and accept the president's proposals." He said he expected the deficit to be "in the $400 billion range for the rest of the decade."

By any measure, the new budget proposal is austere. It calls for deep cuts next year in almost every category of domestic spending outside the mandatory entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, which are based on laws adopted in previous years.

Analyses show that preventing these programs from rising with the rate of inflation and population growth over the next five years would amount to a 16 percent cut, or $65 billion out of $391 billion now being spent.

After adjusting for inflation and including federal salary increases already approved for next year, the vast majority of domestic programs would experience real cuts for the second year in a row, a development that has not happened under modern budget procedures.

Over the past four decades, spending for domestic discretionary programs has declined in only four years — in the first budget year under President Richard M. Nixon, at the beginning of President Ronald Reagan's first and second terms and one year under President Bill Clinton. After each of these years, spending climbed again the next year.

Bush's Republican allies in Congress are already chafing about proposed cuts to farm subsidies, education programs, veterans' benefits and community development block grants.

Moreover, while projecting aggregate spending reductions, the budget does not spell out which specific programs would be cut after 2006.

Many of the savings that Bush is proposing are perennials included in budgets year after year to show a lower projected deficit, even though their enactment is doubtful. Bush proposed substantially cutting or eliminating 65 programs last year, for a total proposed saving of $4.9 billion, but Congress eliminated only four of them for a total saving of less than $200 million.

Among the proposals that Congress rejected last year and that cropped up again on this year's list are reductions in community development block grants, which included $302 million in projects that were earmarked by individual members of Congress, higher deductibles and co-payments for veterans receiving prescription drugs and medical services and elimination of "Even Start," a $247 million education program aimed at helping children of illiterate parents.

Budget analysts noted on Monday that Bush's plan also assumes a sharp slowdown in the growth of defense spending, which has soared 35 percent in the past four years.