services, some of the areas that governments are cutting to deal with budget shortfalls. we are looking at the budget cuts that are hitting different programs. tell us. a lot of people are suffering but you have some specifics on what s on the chopping block. i do. a couple things i learned in gathering this information is it nothing is guaranteed to stick around. it the proposals could affect many, many people and these are not the decisions that governors and state and local leaders want to have to make. take for instance what s already happened in arizona. people who are on a state health care plan would lose their ability to get certain organ transplants. they could get them but the state plan would not pay for them. bone marrow transplants, people are affected by that. they don t have the money and the plan will no longer cover it. moving to illinois, certain substance abuse programs could be on the chopping block because the department of human services
6.6 quake has hit the coast of tonga, a small island in the pacific due east of australia. no word on the tsunami warning. new reports out of mexico say seven workers are dead after an explosion tore through an oil refinery. america s top general, david petraeus, is warning a florida pastor his actions could put troops lives in danger in afghanistan. the pastor is planning to burn copies of the koran on september 11th. former jetblue flight attendant steven slater is working on a plea deal. he has agreed to a mental evaluation that could lead to anger management and substance abuse programs. and joran van der sloot admitted to trying to extort money from the family of natalee holloway. that s the american teenager who has now been missing for five years. tropical storm hermine is widening its way through texas, tearing off roofs and knocking out power. hermine is losing steam as it churns north, but the biggest concern now is rain, up to a foot in some parts of the state.
clearly, very depressed with all of the symptoms that go along with depression. he was not eating well. he would not talk to us. he would not answer questions unless we forced him to respond. and then it would be a one word answer. ben s farnts sought professional help for their son but it wasn t easy. the american psychiatric association doesn t recognize internet addiction as its own separate disorder. the alexanders say most substance abuse programs were not equipped to treat it. then they discovered the restart center, a clinic outside seattle that bills itself as the if i ever inpatient treatment facility for internet addicts. this psychotherapy whoist co-founded restart says troubled young people like ben can see world of war craft and other online games like at a skate patch. they may be dealing with anxiety disorder, maybe they have depression. maybe stress is overwhelming in their lives. a variety of reasons that might lead somebody to use the computer as a coping strate
it s always troubled me, actually, that you ll be in charge of spending more than the congress actually appropriates every year. by that i mean, the part of the budget that we appropriate, that s under pretty good control, the part that has national defense, national institutes of health, national parks, and national laboratories, over the last several years and for the next several years, that part is rising at about the rate of inflation. it s not adding to the budget. it s about a third of the total amount of federal government spending. but it s a little less than the amount that s in your department every year, most of which is entitlement spending, mandatory spending, and which is going up at a rate like that while the rest of the budget is going like this. you ll be overseeing medicare and medicaid, mental and substance abuse programs, just enacted in december of last year, and the president signed