WASHINGTON (AP) — President Bush proposed a $2.4 trillion budget on Monday, slicing scores of programs from prisons to arts education in the face of record federal deficits and the costs of war. His budget chief warned a fresh request for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan could reach $50 billion.

The election-year blueprint would pour funds into the military, domestic security and some education and health initiatives. It provides the first dollars for what ultimately could be a hugely expensive effort to visit Mars, and renews his call for making permanent the tax cuts he has shoved through Congress.

Handcuffed by shortfalls he projects will surge to an unprecedented $521 billion this year, the spare plan for 2005 offers few dramatic initiatives. It is aimed mostly at familiar Bush priorities like war, terrorism, the economy and struggling schools plus a new goal: halving the deficit in five years, which he projects he will achieve with a 2009 shortfall of $237 billion.

“I’m confident our budget addresses a very serious situation,” he said at a Cabinet meeting. “And that is that we are at war and we had dealt with a recession. And our budget is able to address those significant factors in a way that reduces the deficit in half.”