Bush’s Defense Cuts Approved by House Panel : B-2 Bomber Untrimmed; No Programs Are Added Due to Budget Squeeze

In a surprising move, a Democratic-controlled House subcommittee voted Tuesday to approve the Bush Administration’s scaled-down $69-billion defense procurement budget without any changes.

By a vote of 10 to 9, the Defense Department’s proposed budget was approved by the Armed Services Committee’s procurement subcommittee on a motion by Chairman Les Aspin (D-Wis.), who promised to make a similar move in the full committee next week.

It is believed to be the first time in recent decades that any committee of Congress has approved a Pentagon budget request without at least some changes. Aspin said that the vote reflected how seriously limited the government’s budget options are under a deficit-reduction compromise negotiated earlier this year by President Bush and Congress.

‘Staggering Vote’

“I think it’s a remarkable testimony to the fact that people do recognize the budget squeeze,” Aspin said. “. . . It’s a staggering vote. Would you have thought you could have gotten the procurement subcommittee to vote for this? Many of these people are in Congress primarily to protect defense projects in their districts.”

The subcommittee vote also represented an early victory for Northrop Corp., whose B-2 stealth bomber production was funded by the Administration’s budget but is certain to be a primary target of budget-cutters in Congress.

Under normal circumstances, members of Congress load the Pentagon budget with pork-barrel projects, while scaling back on big-ticket strategic programs such as the “Star Wars” missile defense system. If Aspin’s proposal had failed, subcommittee members were prepared to trim the B-2 program and add an estimated $6 billion to $7 billion for other programs.

Bush’s proposed defense budget for fiscal 1990 is the first one since former President Ronald Reagan’s initial spending plan a decade ago that would kill a significant number of major defense procurement programs. Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, a former House member, had slashed $5.4 billion from the procurement budget before sending it to Congress.

Among those programs that the subcommittee agreed to eliminate by adopting the Bush budget proposal were the F-14, manufacturered by Grumman Corp. on Long Island, N.Y., and the Osprey helicopter, which is being developed under a joint contract by Boeing Helicopters in Philadelphia and Bell Helicopter Textron Inc., in Ft. Worth, Tex.

Members from districts where those aircraft are manufacturered vowed to fight the subcommittee’s decision both in the full committee and when the defense authorization bill is debated on the House floor.

Bush and Cheney both lobbied subcommittee members to vote with the majority. Northrop lobbyists also were actively involved on the Administration’s side, while congressional representatives for Grumman, Bell Helicopter and a number of other defense contractors engaged in arm-twisting on the other side.

Aspin argued against adding any programs to the Administration’s budget request because it would add to the government’s already staggering budget deficit. “There is no room for even the deserving add-ons let alone the ones that go oink,” he told subcommittee members in a letter before the vote.

But many members of the subcommittee--mostly Democrats--said that the panel was shirking its duty by adopting the President’s proposal without changes. “Why have a procurement subcommittee if this is going to be the process?” asked Rep. Frank McCloskey (D-Ind.).

Even some Republicans, such as Rep. William L. Dickenson (R-Ala.), the ranking GOP member of Armed Services, expressed regret that the subcommittee was passing up an opportunity to tinker with the President’s request. “Some of us thought he cut too much and some of us thought he cut too little, but we all agreed he cut the wrong thing,” he said.

Nevertheless, all but one Republican--Robert W. Davis of Michigan--voted to approve the President’s budget without changes. Only two other Democrats, Reps. Ike Skelton of Missouri and Richard Ray of Georgia, voted with Aspin in favor of the proposal.

In the Senate, Armed Services Committee Chairman Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) has announced that he will try to impose severe restrictions on members of his panel who seek to add programs to the President’s Pentagon budget. He said that he will require them to demonstrate how the government can fund any additional program over the next five years.

The Senate committee will begin debating the measure in July.

Meanwhile, Sen. John Glenn (D-Ohio), a former astronaut and ex-Marine, called on the President to suspend development of the $500 million-per-copy B-2 bomber because the aircraft has yet to be flight-tested. Glenn said that he favors using the money now earmarked for the B-2 instead to produce the Osprey for the Marines.

The Pentagon already has proposed pushing back production of the B-2 to fiscal 1993 and cutting about $4 billion from the program over the next two fiscal years.