United States Budget

A proposed $1-billion cut in NASA's budget drew fire from members of Congress and scientists who warned in Washington that it would decimate the U.S. space agency. "Enacting these cuts is irresponsible and unacceptable," said Rep. Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.), whose state includes NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. NASA chief Daniel Goldin has said as many as three of the agency's regional centers would close if the budget cuts go through, with significant layoffs likely.

The Senate, in a resounding bipartisan vote, Friday approved the outlines of a watershed budget-balancing agreement between President Clinton and GOP leaders. The vote on the budget was 78-22, with 34 Democrats joining 44 Republicans to support the plan. Eight Democrats and 14 Republicans voted against it. Both California senators, Democrats Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, voted for the budget. "It was truly a bipartisan effort," said Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.).

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.

President Reagan, protesting that federal spending is still too high, said Saturday that Congress--if it continues to resist acting on a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution--could convene a constitutional convention to deal with the question.

President Reagan declared in his final State of the Union address Monday that the nation is "strong," "prosperous" and "at peace," but he offered few new proposals to build on the record of his first seven years in office. The President, in a nationally televised address, pledged to seek an agreement cutting long-range U.S. and Soviet nuclear weapons by half and to press ahead with his space-based Strategic Defense Initiative.

President Reagan, battered but unrepentant from his frequent battles with Congress over budget priorities, will submit a final $1.2-trillion spending blueprint Monday aimed at sustaining a military buildup while still attempting to ax dozens of programs he has failed to kill in the past and to slow down fast-rising outlays for health care and federal workers' retirement. Reagan's budget for the fiscal year that begins on Oct.

President Bush on Thursday sent Congress a $1.6-trillion tax cut proposal, crafted during the election campaign when the economy was booming but serving now as his remedy for the sudden economic slowdown. "A warning light is flashing on the dashboard of our economy, and we just can't drive on and hope for the best," Bush said at a Rose Garden ceremony. "We need tax relief now. In fact, we need tax relief yesterday."

President Clinton said Monday he plans in February to propose the first balanced budget in 30 years, but he warned against enacting any big new tax cuts, which he said would only bring back the deficit. If Congress approved Clinton's fiscal 1999 spending plan intact, it would bring the budget into the black three years ahead of the 2002 deadline envisioned in the accord worked out between the White House and Congress last May.

President Bush, in a surprise announcement, disclosed Friday that he will seek a $500-million increase in government funding next year for Head Start, a 25-year-old program intended to help disadvantaged youngsters prepare for elementary school. Bush said the proposed 36% jump in federal spending is intended to expand the program--one of the few remaining elements of Lyndon B. Johnson's War on Poverty--so it can reach 70% of the disadvantaged 4-year-olds in the nation. Elsewhere in the draft $1.

The federal government prepared for a partial shutdown today for the second time in four weeks, as high-profile talks to balance the budget fell apart amid angry complaints by Republican and Democratic negotiators. "The cuts they [Republicans] propose would deprive millions of people of health care--poor children, pregnant women, the disabled, seniors in nursing homes," President Clinton said later in the day. "They would let Medicare wither on the vine into a second-class system.

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.

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 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 budget he delivered Monday, President Bush relies on one source of new money more than any other to pay for his proposals: the trillions of dollars in Social Security funds being set aside for the start of the baby boom retirement.

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.