United States Budget

Los Angeles area residents intending to go to the post office today may be in for a surprise as postal officials, seeking to cut $160 million from this year's operating budget, have closed down 21 offices on Saturdays and shortened weekday hours at more than 110 others. Mail delivery will still continue on Saturdays. However, there will no longer be Sunday pickup or processing, adding a one-day delay to mail delivery during the week.

Individual income tax receipts are running far below expectations this year, threatening to punch a $50-billion-plus hole in the current federal budget and undercut efforts to pay for the 10-year, $1.35-trillion tax cut. Daily Treasury Department reports show that receipts through Wednesday, the latest date available, were $102.2 billion lower than at the same time last fiscal year, with less than half the difference traceable to the tax cut.

In a major milestone for President Bush's quest to reshape federal fiscal policy, the Senate gave final congressional approval Thursday to a federal budget that authorizes a sweeping tax cut, a major reduction in national debt and a slowdown in government spending. The Senate vote was 53 to 47, with five Democrats crossing party lines to provide crucial support for the budget resolution. Two Republicans voted against it.

The cost of bolstering airport security is mounting rapidly, and this year alone could run more than triple what has been budgeted, congressional and aviation industry officials say. The unexpectedly steep costs facing the new Transportation Security Administration, created after Sept. 11, stem from greater manpower needs, more expensive bomb detection equipment at airports and other factors. They have prompted the Bush administration to ask Congress for an additional $4.

President Clinton said Tuesday that the budget he will send Congress on Feb. 7 will propose paying off the entire $3.6-trillion national debt by 2013--two years earlier than had been expected even a few months ago. At a news conference, the president attributed the opportunity for a speedup to an economy that is even stronger than had been forecast, resulting in higher tax revenue and lower expenses, and to his own austere budget policies.

Bernard L. Schwartz, chairman and chief executive of New York-based Loral Corp., doesn't make any apologies for the fact that his $3.2 million in compensation made him the defense industry's highest-paid executive last year. Asked recently about his compensation, Schwartz said: "We're in a competitive market and we pay well for good performance. I'm reminded of a remark made by Babe Ruth when he was asked why he made more money than the President. He said, 'Well, I had a better year.'

By 2 p.m. Tuesday, security officer Nick McGahuey felt like he had been summoned to keep the peace in a ghost town. The Chet Holifield Federal Building on Avila Road here, known to locals as the Ziggurat building, was eerily deserted. Looking for tax advice at the Internal Revenue Service? "Outta luck," as McGahuey put it. "The doors are locked up tighter than a drum." Those hoping for help in obtaining Social Security checks would find three employees out of 21 on duty at a solitary window.

Senate Democrats dealt a severe blow to the Republican legislative agenda Thursday, killing the heart of the GOP's campaign platform--a constitutional amendment that mandates a balanced budget in seven years. Conceding a significant loss of momentum, grim-faced Republicans immediately set out to exact political revenge, blaming President Clinton and targeting six Democrats who voted against the proposal even though they had backed a virtually identical measure only a year and a day earlier.

Expressing frustration over the federal government shutdown and the strain on furloughed workers, about 100 government employees Tuesday staged a "work-in" at a Baltimore Social Security Administration office. Chanting slogans--"Congress, we want to work!"--the American Federation of Government Employees Local 1923 reversed the normal bargaining practice of withholding labor by urging its members to report to their jobs.

Saying that the nation faces a crisis that could undermine future living standards, President Clinton flatly told an audience of business leaders Thursday that the economic package he plans to offer next week will raise taxes for both individuals and corporations. Clinton has walked around the subject of tax increases rhetorically for weeks.

President Bush rallied U.S. troops here Friday and then viewed a deafening, action-packed tactical demonstration by Special Forces at nearby Ft. Bragg, home to units deployed in Afghanistan and elsewhere in Central Asia. Bush used his visit--the latest of several he has made to military bases since the war on terrorism began--to urge support for his defense spending request.

Despite improvements in the economy and pressure from conservatives to balance the federal budget, House Republicans late Wednesday endorsed a $2.1-trillion spending blueprint that would produce a $46-billion deficit in 2003. The budget, which would fully fund large spending increases sought by President Bush for defense and homeland security, demonstrates how hard it will be for Congress to avoid deficits during a time of war--and in an election year.

The war in Afghanistan and the Pentagon's efforts to bolster security at home will cost a projected $30 billion this year, far more than Congress has provided, according to Defense Department documents obtained by Associated Press. President Bush and Congress have given the Pentagon $17.4 billion for the war and the domestic fight against terrorism this fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30. Other federal agencies have received billions more.

President Bush submitted a $2.1-trillion budget Monday that sets aside debt reduction and squeezes domestic programs to finance homeland security, the war on terrorism and another round of big tax cuts. Reflecting Reaganesque fiscal priorities, Bush's budget for fiscal year 2003 asks Congress for new tax cuts worth $590 billion and defense spending increases totaling $550 billion over the next 10 years.

Although Americans express resounding approval of President Bush's performance at home and abroad, an overwhelming majority would rather cancel later stages of his signature tax cut than tap Social Security revenue to pay for other government programs, a Los Angeles Times Poll has found. With war, the recession and the tax cut's cost straining the government's bottom line, the White House on Monday released a budget that projects Washington will need to divert $1.

Let the spending spree begin. Congress received President Bush's budget Monday in a political and fiscal climate that has precious few incentives for lawmakers to exercise fiscal discipline. It is an election year. War and recession have loosened purse strings. And even Bush is saying other matters now are more important than keeping the government in the black. That's a big departure from the trend of the last two decades.

In the heyday of the Vietnam War, Tony Tropin began working at Hughes Aircraft as an optical systems engineer. When the war ended and the aerospace industry suffered a collapse, Tropin managed to hold on to his Hughes job. But after surviving the ups and downs of the defense industry for 20 years, Tropin's luck finally expired last year. He was involuntarily retired from Hughes, one of 3,200 workers who were put out in 1989. An additional 6,100 Hughes workers left on their own.

Today, as the spacecraft Galileo swoops past Jupiter's volcano-ridden moon Io collecting images and scientific data, few will be as mesmerized by the close encounter as La Verne resident Eileen Clark. The 49-year-old space buff is a mission operations analyst at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. She trouble-shoots the Galileo project, anticipating problems before they occur. Clark loves her job. In fact, she'd be thrilled to remain at JPL for years to come.

Federal funding for aviation security would triple. Spending to defend against bioterrorist attacks would quadruple. And money to help police and firefighters respond to calamities would increase more than tenfold. Those details are part of the first-ever homeland security budget that was folded into the Bush administration spending plan released Monday. The $37.

The White House on Monday unveiled a mammoth $379-billion budget for the Pentagon that is expected to provide a bounty of expanded resources for intelligence agencies but otherwise relatively little new funding for the war on terrorism. The budget calls for a $48-billion overall increase in defense spending, a 14% jump that represents the largest percentage increase since the United States escalated its involvement in the Vietnam War in 1966. Defense Secretary Donald H.