Budget: Smoke and Mirrors

Out of a $1-trillion budget for fiscal 1988, only $23 billion stands between Congress and President Reagan to be financed through a combination of domestic budget cuts, military reductions and new revenues. That is not a big difference for reasonable people to settle. Reagan’s original budget included $7 billion in new revenues, so, while the President can proclaim “no new taxes” as much as he wants, he already is on record for increased federal collections from the people.

Still, the President protests that Congress has played a nasty trick on him. In order to raise the federal debt limit, which must be done, Reagan has been forced to accept a revised Gramm-Rudman budget-deficit-reduction apparatus that would provide automatic budget cuts if the two sides failed to bridge the $23-billion gap. Should the Gramm-Rudman provisions be triggered, half the reductions would come out of the defense side of the budget and half from the domestic side. This is not unreasonable, given the fact that the domestic budget has been cut time and again in the past seven years while defense has enjoyed a bloated $1-trillion-plus arms buildup.

Reagan warmly endorsed Gramm-Rudman when it first was adopted two years ago with the same 50-50 split in domestic and defense cuts. Now, however, he opposes it because “it really is an attempt to force me, eventually, either to sign a tax bill or accept massive cuts in national defense or both.”

What Congress really is trying to force on the President is a measure of reality. If he wants more military spending, and if he wants to reduce the budget deficit, he will have to pay for it. An outraged Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger protested that the defense budget should be based on security needs and not be used to gain political advantage over the President. By the same reasoning, the domestic budget should be based on national needs. But this Administration has never given the human needs of Americans equal consideration with tanks, planes and missiles.

The President protests that Congress has avoided making tough budget choices. In truth, Congress has not acted with great courage, pushing the most difficult deficit-reduction decisions off until a new Administration takes office in 1989. But at least Congress has sought to balance federal priorities, and in fact has achieved considerable domestic budget reductions over the past seven years.

Most of the blame for any breakdown in the budget operation rests squarely on the White House doorstep, and an absence of presidential leadership. Each year the President has sent Congress an unrealistic budget and then has walked away from the process. In the meantime the federal debt has more than doubled, from $1 trillion to more than $2 trillion.

This year Congress has offered Reagan a reasonable alternative to the Gramm-Rudman budget knife. For once he should emerge from behind the blue smoke and mirrors to negotiate a deal.