No Red Lights and Sirens as Spending Plan Is Unveiled

In contrast to last year’s theatrics, when the Administration delivered its supposedly “dead on arrival” budget by ambulance, there was no fanfare today when the Government Printing Office opened its doors.

About 200 reporters stood in line in subfreezing temperatures to get an $11 copy of President Reagan’s $1.02-trillion budget as soon as it was available to the media. The inch-thick document was meager by standards of previous years.

In 1986, Administration officials clad in hospital gear wheeled the budget document in on a gurney to demonstrate that it was not “DOA” as critics charged.

The year before, the Office of Management and Budget director was photographed handing out the first copies of the budget in a smoke-filled room--produced by dry ice--as comic relief to the Democrats’ charges that the budget numbers were nothing but “smoke and mirrors.”

But the Iran arms scandal seems to have deadened the Administration’s sense of humor and this year the presidential image-makers decided to play it straight. Adding to the somber mood was the fact that Reagan was undergoing prostate surgery the same day.