Government Spending

President Clinton's new budget represents far more than a tall stack of dollar figures and forecasts: It is the blueprint of a domestic agenda that--more than public relations or shrewd gamesmanship--explains why many Americans continue to support him despite a relentless parade of controversies.

Mayor Richard Riordan released a $160-million housing and community development spending plan Monday that emphasizes improving neighborhoods and creating more jobs. The mayor's proposal, which probably will receive a less than warm response from the City Council, reflects a $7-million drop in federal Community Development Block Grant funds, a particularly painful decline given the number of community groups seeking them.

The House on Wednesday night overwhelmingly approved one of the biggest public works bills in history, a $217-billion road-building bonanza that fiscal conservatives say makes a mockery of the Republican crusade to control government spending. The bill, which passed 337 to 80, would channel about $3 billion a year to car-dependent California over the next six years--a 52% increase over the state's current annual allocation--for a cornucopia of highway and transit projects.

After five years of aggressively expanding the Los Angeles Police Department, Mayor Richard Riordan unveiled a $2.7-billion budget Monday that would not add new officers to the force, ending at least for now the hiring boom that swept Riordan into office and remains the hallmark of his tenure.

As Iraq this week tries to persuade the United Nations to lift economic sanctions punishing the country, Iraqi leaders are facing a growing public relations dilemma: New indications of lavish spending by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and his inner circle undercut their claim that the embargo has brought severe hardship. The sanctions come up for review at the U.N.

The 306 residents of Whittier, Alaska, have to walk an extra quarter-mile around the railroad tracks when they want to get to the town port, and they don't like to do that. "It's inconvenient," said Alaska Railroad spokesman Jim Banks. But not for long. Thanks to the massive spending bill adopted by Congress in October, Whittier--a town so small that most of its residents live in one building--will be getting a $700,000 pedestrian overpass.

Japan today approved a draft initial budget for the fiscal year starting in April that aims at stimulating the economy out of its long recession, but the heavy spending will put the nation deeper into fiscal debt. The Ministry of Finance unveiled a $706-billion budget plan for the year through March 2000, an increase from this year's $675-billion initial budget and a record high. The plan includes a 5.3% increase for general items, which exclude debt payments and tax grants to local governments.

State Legislative Analyst Elizabeth Hill called on lawmakers and Gov.-elect Gray Davis on Monday to earmark nearly $16 billion over the next 10 years for improvements to California's aging and ailing public works system. Hill added her voice to a rising chorus of business executives, labor officials, educators and others demanding a remedy to the deteriorating conditions of highways, college campuses, schools, water treatment plants and parks.

In a setback for advocates of increased defense spending, House Speaker-designate Bob Livingston (R-La.) has declined to support a GOP campaign to pass the biggest military budget hike since the 1980s. Defense advocates were expecting Livingston to join Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) in publicly endorsing increases of $20 billion to $25 billion a year in the $251-billion military spending plan.

Poor planning and mismanagement caused Los Angeles County to waste $18.6 million on an ill-conceived courthouse construction boom, a state audit released Tuesday concluded, adding that potentially millions more dollars were squandered because county officials ignored the warning of an outside consulting firm that cautioned against building so many courtrooms.