Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, April 19, 1990 TAG: 9004190309
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
The package, which the House Budget Committee plans to vote on today, also would increase spending by $6 billion on programs that include child care, NASA and aid to Central America, Eastern Europe and Africa.
The proposal is the first detailed response by Democratic leaders to the 1991 fiscal year budget Bush requested in January.
At the time, Democrats complained Bush's spending blueprint was not a serious effort to reduce the deficit, and was too generous to the military at a time of lessening tensions with the Soviet Union.
"The world has changed greatly," said House Speaker Thomas Foley, D-Wash., who outlined highlights of the plan at a news conference with other top Democrats.
"The United States is obviously now in a position to look more intensively at the problems that lie within our own country."
House Budget Committee Chairman Leon Panetta, D-Calif., predicted approval by his Democratic-dominated panel.
But Rep. Bill Frenzel of Minnesota, ranking Republican on the budget panel, called the proposal "a typical Democratic budget without discipline."
The Democratic proposal claims to trim the 1991 deficit by $36 billion to $63.8 billion. That would be just below the $64 billion target set by the Gramm-Rudman deficit-reduction act, which requires a balanced budget by 1993. Fiscal 1991 begins Oct. 1.
The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has said the administration is underestimating next year's deficit by $70 billion.
The Democrats would slice $11.5 billion off the amount the military would need next year to stay abreast of inflation. That would leave defense spending at $295 billion - $8 billion less than Bush wants.
Panetta's plan would raise taxes by $13.9 billion, the same amount Bush proposed in January, and collect an additional $5.6 billion in new government fees. The anticipated growth of Medicare and other federal benefit programs would be slowed by $4.2 billion.
The plan also would boost spending in several areas of science, including NASA; improve federal health efforts for children, and increase expenditures for education, road building and anti-crime initiatives.
by CNB