All Spending Must Be ‘on Table’ for Budget Cuts, Rep. Gray Says

Rep. William H. Gray III (D-Pa.), the new chairman of the House Budget Committee, said Sunday that when Congress begins slicing into mounting federal deficits, “everything must be on the table,” including Pentagon spending, domestic spending and entitlements such as Social Security.

Gray said that he has little enthusiasm for cuts in Social Security. “I’m reluctant to look at Social Security,” he said, especially in light of legislation passed a few years ago in an effort to solve the system’s financing problems into the next century.

However, he said that any federal budget that cuts or freezes domestic spending but does not cut or freeze defense spending will have a tough time in both the House and Senate.

Gray also said that there is no sentiment in Congress for a tax increase and no chance that any tax bill would pass without President Reagan’s active support. Therefore, a cutback in the growth of defense spending would be necessary to reduce the deficit.

“If you eliminate Pentagon spending (from cuts) and you eliminate revenue increases, then I think a budget that (cuts the) domestic side . . . will run into significant trouble on both sides of Capitol Hill,” Gray said in an interview.

“If there’s going to be cuts in domestic spending . . . then everything’s got to be on the table, and that includes defense spending,” he said.

When asked if Social Security and other entitlement programs also would have to be considered in the budget-cutting process, Gray said: “Everything must be on the table. I think that everything just has to be there to begin with.”