House Defense Bill Shifts Weapons Funds : Cuts in Nuclear Arms Spending Called ‘Michael Dukakis’ Budget

The House Thursday passed a $305-billion defense spending bill for fiscal 1990 that takes money from President Bush’s nuclear weapons programs to continue funding several conventional systems that the Pentagon does not want.

The House-passed bill, adopted by a vote of 261 to 162, has drawn strong opposition from the Administration on grounds that it upsets the priorities that the President and Defense Secretary Dick Cheney set for the military in the fiscal year begining Oct. 1.

Even House Armed Services Committee Chairman Les Aspin (D-Wis.) acknowledged: “We have pretty well shredded George Bush’s strategic program. . . . We got a Michael Dukakis defense budget.

“We got no Midgetman, no rail MX, big cuts in SDI and a slowdown of the B-2,” he said, referring to two high-profile missile programs, the Strategic Defense Initiative and the B-2 Stealth bomber.

As a result of House action, the President is looking to the Senate to bring the final legislation back into line with his policies. The Senate, usually more supportive of the President’s military proposals than the House, is expected to complete work on a fiscal 1990 defense spending bill before Congress begins a summer recess late next week.

The Senate demonstrated its willingness to support the President Thursday night by voting, 50 to 47, to defeat a proposal offered by Sen. J. Bennett Johnston (D-La.) to slash $558 million from the Strategic Defense Initiative. The amendment would have cut funding for the program to about $4 billion, or about $800 million less than was requested by Bush.

Shortly before passing its version of the defense spending measure, the House agreed by voice vote to eliminate all funding for the single-warhead Midgetman missile program. Republicans initiated the move in retaliation for the House’s decision Wednesday night to trim $502 million for deployment of the 10-warhead MX missile on railway cars.

It was not clear whether this vote would permanently scuttle an agreement negotiated earlier this year between the President and Democratic congressional leaders to proceed with both the Midgetman and MX rail deployment. Bush had agreed to continue funding for Midgetman, which the Democrats prefer, in exchange for continued Democratic support for MX.

Likewise, Bush’s decisions to proceed with production of the Stealth bomber and to continue development of the so-called “Star Wars” nuclear defense system were also sorely challenged in the House. Liberals as well as a few fiscal conservatives questioned why Bush is investing in these expensive systems at a time when the United States appears to be on the verge of an arms control pact with the Soviet Union.

Under the House measure, funding for the Stealth bomber would be halted until the Pentagon comes up with a way to scale down the estimated $70 billion total cost of the program; “Star Wars” research would get $3.1 billion, or $1.5 billion less than the Administration requested, and the MX rail garrison program would be slowed down by the $502 million cut.

But the money saved by these cuts would not be returned to the Treasury. Instead, it would go to purchase a number of weapons that the Pentagon is trying to cancel--including the F-14D Tomcat fighter plane, the V-22 tilt-rotor helicopter and the National Aerospace Plane.

On all of these procurement issues--with the possible exception of the funding for “Star Wars”--the Senate appeared ready to take the opposite view and adhere to the Administration’s position. As a result, it is doubtful that all of the changes made by the House in Bush’s proposed Pentagon budget will survive in the final legislation.