Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, February 4, 1995 TAG: 9502060036
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
The White House plans to portray the budget as a spare but fair spending plan for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. But as details of the $1.6 trillion plan were emerging Friday, it was already being attacked by Republicans and some Democrats as too little, both in terms of deficit reduction and tax cuts.
The spending blueprint that the Republican-controlled Congress finally approves will almost certainly be vastly different from Clinton's plan, given what the GOP sees as its mandate from the November elections to provide far more in tax relief and the downsizing of government.
Taking his first shot, Clinton will pledge Monday to save billions ``by ending more than 130 programs altogether and to provide better service to Americans by consolidating more than 270 other programs.''
Some details of his budget for fiscal 1996, confirmed by administration and congressional officials:
The deficit savings would be gained in this way: $26 billion from significant cutbacks in the departments of Energy, Transportation and Housing and Urban Development, the Office of Personnel Management and the General Services Administration; $81 billion from extending a cap on military and other discretionary spending through the year 2000; $32 billion from cutting benefit programs; and $5 billion from lower interest payments based on the deficit savings.
The budget proposes abolishing the Interstate Commerce Commission, transferring some functions performed by the National Weather Service to private meteorologists and eliminating the role of the Army Corps of Engineers in smaller projects such as controlling beach erosion and constructing recreational harbors.
In a direct challenge to Republicans, Clinton proposes a major increase in one of his proudest accomplishments, the national service program Americorps. He would boost the number of participants from 20,000 to 47,000 by the end of the 1996 budget year. House Speaker Newt Gingrich has criticized this program as ``coerced volunteerism.''
The budget would also seek an additional $188 million for AIDS treatment and prevention, a 7 percent increase from current spending and an amount that the Human Rights Campaign Fund, which lobbies on gay issues, declared welcome news in a time of severe budget restraints.
``Working with Congress in 1993, we enacted the largest deficit reduction package in history,'' Clinton declared in his budget message, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press. ``Now that we have brought the deficit down, we have no intention of turning back.''
Still, while he notes proudly he will be the first president since Harry Truman to reduce the deficit for three straight years, Clinton's budget also starkly shows that the deficit will start to rise again.
For this fiscal year, the budget projects a deficit of $192.5 billion, rising to $196.6 billion in 1996 and still hovering around $190 billion through 2005, far above the zero deficit goal of the GOP for 2002.
While the Republicans have yet to detail how they would get to a balanced budget, the Congressional Budget Office this week said it would take more than $1 trillion in spending cuts to achieve that goal.
In comparison, Clinton's budget calls for $144 billion in spending cuts over the next five years. With those savings, Clinton would provide $63 billion in middle-class tax breaks, including $500 tax credits for families with children and expanded tax-free savings accounts. The other $81 billion would go to reduce the deficit over those years.
The Republican ``Contract With America'' calls for $196 billion in tax relief over five years.
Senate Budget Committee Chairman Pete Domenici, R-N.M., has talked of spending cuts three times higher than Clinton's. He said the proposal ``is going to be insufficient to accomplish our goals of changing this government by making it smaller and returning power to the states.''
by CNB