Reagan Tells Congress: Quit Excuses on Budget

President Reagan said today that Congress should “stop making excuses and start showing some backbone and leadership” by approving a politically hazardous budget plan limiting Social Security increases and killing some popular spending programs.

Arguing that Amtrak subsidies and the Job Corps should be terminated along with other programs, Reagan declared, “We can no longer afford to finance everything.”

Reagan addressed the annual meeting of the National Assn. of Realtors in the opening salvo of a lobbying campaign for congressional approval of a plan intended to shrink the federal deficit below $100 billion by 1988 without raising taxes.

The audience of several thousand real estate brokers cheered and applauded as the President repeatedly promised to urge Congress to vote for the plan endorsed by Reagan and Senate Republican leaders.

Reagan readily acknowledged that passage of the budget “will not be easy to get through the political process.” He said lobbyists representing various interest groups “are out in force,” working with sympathetic members of Congress to substitute tax increases for budget cuts.

Question and Answer

“Do you think the American people want their taxes increased?” Reagan asked.

“No!” the audience shouted.

“Well, do you think Congress should stop making excuses and start showing some backbone and leadership?” the President asked.

“Yes!” the audience replied with a burst of applause.

Although there is broad support in Congress for cutting spending and curbing the deficit, there is widespread disagreement over how to do it, particularly on the eve of an election year.

Republicans and Democrats alike are drafting amendments to save some of the more than a dozen programs targeted for extinction or soften the blow aimed at a longer list of projects in line for deep cuts or spending freezes.

‘Leaner, Healthier’

Reagan called his proposal “a leaner, healthier budget.” He said it costs taxpayers $15,200 for each year of training for a Job Corps trainee. “For that kind of money we could send them to Harvard for one year.”

“When Amtrak trains leave the station,” he said, “they are being fueled by $35 in subsidies for each passenger. They just keep shoveling in those tax dollars, but it’s you the people who are getting railroaded.”

Reagan’s plan would curb the increase in Pentagon spending to 3% after inflation. Reagan called that a “rock-bottom level.”

The plan would also limit Social Security increases to 2% for each of the next three years--half the expected 4% boost in inflation.

Another part of the package contains $18 billion in Medicare savings and beneficiary increases over three years.