Chaotic Budget Ax

Last fall the Orange County Board of Supervisors approved a sensible and needed program to place senior citizens arrested for shoplifting in counseling programs rather than in jail. The program carried a modest price tag of $45,000. Last December President Reagan signed into law the Gramm-Rudman deficit-reduction bill that requires automatic spending cuts over the next five years unless Congress and the President find other ways to wipe out the federal deficit. The first cuts are due by March 1.

And last Tuesday the county board backed away from the pilot diversion program for elderly residents because of uncertainty and confusion over what effect Gramm-Rudman actually will have.

One thing is certain. Aside from the legal questions surrounding the bill, the automatic and arbitrary reductions are beginning to cause chaos and confusion, not only in Washington but in the board rooms of local government across the land. The confusion provides grass-roots evidence that although spending cuts are needed, Gramm-Rudman’s meat-ax approach is not the way to achieve them.