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

DATE: MONDAY, February 7, 1994                   TAG: 9402070076
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

CLINTON'S BUDGET HIT FOR BEING TOO TIGHT

Liberal Democrats and lobbyists aimed fire at President Clinton Sunday for cuts he will seek in his 1995 budget, as administration officials defended the $1.5 trillion blueprint that will be released today.

"I'm not satisfied with the budget," Rep. Kweisi Mfume, D-Md., chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press."

Mfume took special issue with Clinton's plans to whittle down spending for public housing and heating assistance, saying, "Those things are getting close to becoming what we call non-negotiable items."

Clinton's package, for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1, will lack the dramatic tax increases and spending reductions the president sought a year ago in his first budget. That proposal paved the way for last summer's enactment of his near-$500 billion deficit-reduction plan.

But to meet the tight strictures imposed by last August's package - and pay for increases Clinton wants for scores of other programs - the budget will propose eliminating 115 small programs, and holding nearly 600 others at or below the amounts they were allowed for this year.

The proposed cuts would total $25 billion, said one administration official who spoke Sunday on condition of anonymity. Of that, $8 billion will be used to beef up favored programs such as job training and technological research, and the rest to contain a 1995 deficit the administration will project at $176.1 billion - the lowest level since 1989.

Word of the spending cuts has already angered many members of Congress, all of whom have favorite programs they furiously defend. Lawmakers will spend most of the year deciding which of the president's proposals to embrace and which to ignore.

Special-interest groups are also wasting little time gearing up.

The budget will claim that tens of billions of dollars can be saved over the next five years if Congress enacts Clinton's plan to revamp health care. Part of the savings will come from a previously announced plan to increase the cigarette tax.

Keywords:
INFOLINE

by CNB