Budget to Boost Aid for Homeless : Import-Idled Workers Also to Get More Help, Miller Says

The Reagan Administration, in one of its few proposals for higher domestic spending, will offer to expand substantially trade assistance programs for U.S. workers laid off because of competition from foreign imports, Budget Director James C. Miller III said Tuesday.

The White House will also propose increasing federal spending for the nation’s homeless to more than $100 million from the current $70 million, reversing its previous opposition to the federally funded assistance, budget officials said.

Meanwhile, President Reagan on Tuesday made the final decisions on the few remaining issues in his budget proposal for the next fiscal year, Administration officials said. According to those officials, Reagan accepted a plan to set an overall limit on the farm subsidy money that any one farmer may receive and rejected a suggestion by Labor Secretary William E. Brock III to impose higher customs fees on imported goods to pay for the trade assistance program.

Intense Battles

At a breakfast session with reporters, Miller said the internal Administration battles over the budget were more intense than usual this year. “Compared to last year, there was a flood of appeals” from many of the individual agencies, he said. But, Miller said, “only three went past OMB, and only one” had to be settled personally by Reagan.

Miller disclosed broad outlines of the budget that Reagan will present to Congress on Jan. 5. The trade assistance program, for which he did not provide specifics, is expected to be a central element of Reagan’s State of the Union address next month, in which a number of initiatives to improve the nation’s economic competitiveness will be announced.

At the same time, he disclosed that the President has accepted the concept of a new health coverage plan for catastrophic illnesses. But he said the White House plan will rely more on private insurers than one proposed by Health and Human Services Secretary Otis R. Bowen, although both require higher payments by Medicare recipients to conform to the stricture against increasing the budget deficit.

No Final Health Plan

In a meeting Tuesday, the Cabinet-level Domestic Policy Council did not reach final agreement on the details of the new health plan, Administration officials said.

The White House is further trying to rein in federal spending for medical care by proposing to limit the growth of federal health programs to 4% next year--barely above the 3.6% inflation rate forecast by the Administration. In recent years, federal spending on medical care has been rising as much as 10% a year, Miller said.

The budget will also propose a cut in the politically sensitive veterans’ health program, Miller said, trimming back care for higher-income veterans with health problems that are not directly connected to their service. But the Administration would continue full treatment for veterans with incomes less than about $15,000 and for all veterans suffering from service-connected injuries.

Limited Military Increase

As previously disclosed, the budget proposal for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1 will follow the outlines of Reagan’s recent budgets. It will limit the request for higher military spending to a 3% inflation-adjusted increase above this year’s level, exempt Social Security and other federal retirement programs from cutbacks, slash discretionary domestic spending and close the remaining deficit gap to meet Gramm-Rudman law targets through numerous revenue-raising measures such as user fees and sales of federal assets.

Of the slightly more than $50 billion in deficit reduction measures called for in Reagan’s budget, Miller said, about $22 billion would come from increased revenues, and spending cuts would account for about $30 billion of the proposed savings. About $12 billion would be trimmed from various entitlement programs, mostly in health care.

The harshest cuts would fall on about $180 billion in domestic spending for a wide range of so-called discretionary programs, on which the Administration seeks to impose an overall cutback of 10%, or $18 billion.

Smaller Total Outlays

Reagan’s budget plan, Miller said, will call for holding outlays below this year’s level, with total spending of about $1.02 trillion, and revenues are expected to climb by an estimated $77 billion, to $915 billion.

Thus, that would leave a deficit of slightly less than the $108-billion target called for by the Gramm-Rudman budget-balancing act.

For the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, the federal deficit hit a record $221 billion, but the Reagan Administration is forecasting that this year’s deficit will fall to about $170 billion.

In an aside on that point, Miller announced with some fanfare that he could disclose one crucial fact about the budget document--it will have a maroon cover.

He jokingly dismissed the idea that the cover will be maroon because red and black are the colors of the University of Georgia, his alma mater, or because maroon is a color for Texas A&M;, where he once taught.

The real reason for the maroon cover, he said, “is that it’s a red budget, but it’s turning black. We are making significant progress.”