ROANOKE TIMES 

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, April 8, 1993                   TAG: 9304080127
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A1   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

CLINTON TO SHOW BUDGET

President Clinton sends Congress his first full-scale federal budget today, a $1.51 trillion spending plan guaranteed a serious - if not necessarily smooth - reception in the Democratic-led body.

The Clinton fiscal 1994 budget already is drawing as much attention for what it won't include as for what it will. Abortion restrictions, for instance, won't be there. Nor will proposals for health-care financing or the president's new $1.6 billion aid package for Russia.

It also is the first budget in 12 years that isn't being declared "dead on arrival" by congressional leaders. In fact, the House and the Senate have already approved budget resolutions endorsing its broad outlines.

But that doesn't mean there won't be fights. Clinton's budget will detail thousands of specific spending decisions to help him achieve his goal of close to $500 billion in deficit reduction over five years.

Republicans are expected to pounce hard on many proposals, as they have on Clinton's $16.3 billion fiscal 1993 stimulus package, now stalled in the Senate.

Today's budget will put into details the many programs and proposals Clinton outlined in his economic address to Congress on Feb. 17.

Clinton's Feb. 17 economic plan projected that the government in fiscal 1994 - which begins Oct. 1 - would take in $1.25 trillion and spend $1.51 trillion, resulting in a $262 billion deficit.

By comparison, the deficit for fiscal 1992 was $290.2 billion and is estimated by the Congressional Budget Office for the current fiscal year to be $319 billion - or $335 billion if Clinton's fiscal stimulus package is adopted.

Clinton's budget is expected to reflect his central campaign vows - cutting defense, cutting the deficit, and increasing "investment" spending on the nation's infrastructure (including highways and bridges), on education, and communications and other high-tech programs.

Also, Clinton wants to spend substantially less than President Bush did to protect new lands, an administration official said. Clinton had promised during the presidential campaign to buy more park and recreation areas.

The defense section calls for $263.4 billion in spending, $10 billion less than last year and $12 billion short of what Bush had envisioned.

Defense savings would come from a reduction of 108,000 in active-duty military personnel, a pay freeze and modest cuts in the Strategic Defense Initiative. But the blueprint terminates no major Reagan-Bush-era weapons systems.

Clinton's $590 billion budget for the Department of Health and Human Services is expected to boost spending for children, women's health and AIDS research, care and prevention.

The budget will lack abortion restrictions, which had appeared perennially during the Reagan and Bush administrations. 

Memo: shorter version ran in the Metro edition.
by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB