Democrats Adopt Long View on Defense

Liberal Democrats in the House have agreed to accept a relatively modest “peace dividend” this year and next in exchange for larger savings later in order to help forge a Democratic consensus on cutting defense spending, House leaders indicated Wednesday.

The agreement followed a closed-door caucus of Democrats at which party leaders presented a broad five-year plan for cutting defense spending. It avoided proposing any specific numbers, but called for reducing outlays gradually at first, building to bigger savings later.

Until now, the party has been too deeply divided to enable the Democrats to offer a serious alternative to President Bush’s defense budget. Support by liberal Democrats has been considered a major element in any potential compromise.

Immediately after the caucus, House Budget Committee Chairman Leon E. Panetta (D-Carmel Valley) predicted that both liberal and conservative Democrats would show surprising unity in coming battles.

“For the first time, I think Jack Murtha and Ron Dellums could take to the floor and debate with some consensus the direction of this defense budget,” Panetta said.

Murtha is a conservative Pennsylvanian who heads the House defense appropriations subcommittee, and Dellums is a liberal from Oakland who is a prominent critic of military spending.

Democrats have not stinted in criticizing Bush’s military budget. When Bush last January proposed trimming projected defense spending by 2% during each of the next five years, they overwhelmingly accused him of responding too timidly to the diminished Soviet threat.

“Big defense cuts, ironically, start with small outlay cuts,” Rep. Les Aspin (D-Wis.), the middle-road chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said in background papers distributed to the rank and file.

He urged Democrats to concentrate not just on year-to-year outlay levels, but on proposals that commit the government to future spending--such as laying the keel for an aircraft carrier, which obliges the Pentagon to build the hull and decks as well.

Democratic leaders contended that deep cuts in a new weapons program such as the B-2 Stealth bomber would produce relatively small savings immediately because it takes several years for production to get into full swing.

But they argue that deciding now to halt production could produce large savings in later years because the Pentagon would be unable to sign long-term contracts committing the government to future spending.

They also warned that radical troop cuts to carve out an immediate large peace dividend could well cause severe disruption in deployment and in the day-to-day lives of ordinary soldiers.

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), a liberal who has advocated deep first-year cuts, acknowledged the strength of this argument, saying: “We don’t want to be unfair to volunteers in the armed services.”

Frank heads a coalition of groups inside and outside Congress that has proposed to slash $25 billion from Bush’s $303.3-billion request for fiscal 1991, which begins Oct. 1.

But Panetta estimated that, as the result of the leaders’ push for a five-year plan, the total amount to be cut probably would range between $4 billion and $9 billion.

House Speaker Thomas S. Foley (D-Wash.) said after the caucus that there was “a solid consensus to go for a multi-year approach. . . . Instant reductions are difficult,” he said. “Over time they will come as part of a realigned policy.”