U.S. Gearing for Cutbacks of $85 Billion

As things stand now, if Congress and the White House fail to reach a budget agreement by midnight Sunday, the federal government will have to slash its spending by a staggering $85 billion, causing sharp cutbacks in services that will quickly be felt by millions of Americans.

Sharp reductions in money for programs--and the furloughing of thousands of federal employees--would disrupt commercial air traffic, reduce access to national parks, cause delays at ports of entry and trigger shortages of fresh meats, weather forecasts and even coins.

That is but a sampling of the potentially far-reaching consequences of a continuing budget stalemate that could, under the Gramm-Rudman deficit reduction law, mandate unprecedented across-the-board spending cuts throughout the federal bureaucracy.

Even mail delivery, which relies on commercial night flights, would probably be affected.

Late Friday, Budget Director Richard G. Darman ordered all department heads to be prepared to close down their agencies Monday morning if negotiators do not reach a budget accord by the Sunday night deadline. He said passage of a stopgap spending bill was “unlikely.”

Some essential services or agencies are exempt from the automatic cuts--including salaries for military personnel and benefits under Social Security, disability and workers’ compensation, Medicaid, food stamps and most other welfare programs.

But, even in those areas, the widespread furloughing of federal employees is likely to cause sharp reductions in business hours, delays in processing of applications and possibly huge backlogs that could affect government services for months.

There are these examples:

--Some of the most severe effects of the spending cuts would be felt by the nation’s air traffic control system, where cutbacks in work hours of air controllers would force cancellation of about 3,000 scheduled flights a day.

The move would force most major airports to impose hour-by-hour flight reductions. For example, Los Angeles International currently has 82 departures from noon to 1 p.m. Under the cutbacks, only 47 takeoffs would be allowed, the Federal Aviation Administration said.

In addition, the FAA will have to cut back maintenance and security inspections by about 30%--a move that could increase the chances of maintenance problems going undetected. “You can’t protect any program,” said Fred Farrar, an FAA spokesman.

--Social Security Administration officials said that, although the October Social Security checks already have been delivered to post offices, the cutbacks in operating funds would force a 32% cut in the agency’s administrative budget, placing the agency on part-time office hours.

Every employee at Social Security offices nationwide would be looking at a 16-hour reduction in his work week, said Frank Battistelli, an agency spokesman. “This is uncharted territory for us,” he said. “We’ve never done this before.”

--The Agriculture Department would have to furlough 7,500 meat and poultry inspectors, risking delays in getting fresh meats to market. But Agriculture Secretary Clayton K. Yeutter said he would delay the start of any such furloughs until at least Oct. 9.

Citrus growers in states like California and Florida would face delays in getting crops to the market because of the forced staff reductions, agency officials said.

--The Internal Revenue Service said it may have to furlough 20% of its workers, which could result in the loss of millions of dollars in revenue collections. The staff reduction could also mean a delay in getting to the bank the $180 million that the agency receives from taxpayers daily. The IRS said there would also be fewer employees available to answer telephone queries from the public.

--The Department of Veterans Affairs said that staff furloughs may result in some delays in the processing of applications for benefits. The agency may also have to close two of its large cemeteries two days a week, a spokesman said.

--The Interior Department said it plans to keep open the large parks, like Yosemite and the Grand Canyon, but close some of the smaller facilities, including the Washington Monument and the Statute of Liberty, for perhaps two days a week.

Either way, a department spokesman said, visitors can expect reduced services. Some campgrounds, boat launching areas and other recreational facilities may have to be closed.

--The Immigration and Naturalization Service said travelers at hundreds of border crossings and airports could expect to experience delays because of furloughs at the INS.

--Furloughs at the Bureau of Prisons would place 30% of the system’s correctional officers, hospital staff, clerks, food service staff, teachers and others on leave at any given time, affecting 72 institutions that house a total of 58,000 inmates.

If Gramm-Rudman takes effect, each employee would be furloughed for three days between Oct. 1 and Oct. 15. Beginning Oct. 15, if the situation is unchanged, each employee would be furloughed for 3 1/2 days for each two-week pay period.

--At the Pentagon, spokesman Pete Williams said the effect of the Gramm-Rudman ax would be “very severe,” although the cuts are not likely to affect the current deployment of U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia.

Lawmakers and Bush Administration budget negotiators agreed early in the deliberations to insulate Operation Desert Shield from the mandatory budget cuts, defense officials said.

However, Williams added, “For the Army, Navy and Air Force, the readiness of the forces that are not in the Persian Gulf area would obviously be degraded. Steaming days, flying time, training miles--all those sorts of things would be cut by a third to a half for whatever period is necessary.”

The President, exercising a power given to him by the budget law, said earlier that he would not reduce the size of the uniformed military forces. But that means, in turn, that some of the Defense Department’s 1,130,000 civilian employees--more than 10% of whom work in California--could be hit all the harder.

In smaller, labor-intensive agencies like the Defense Contracting Auditing Agency, which has about 1,000 employees in the Los Angeles area, workers may be forced to take as many as 19 days of unpaid furlough through October and November, according to the agency’s executive officer, Phillip Rogers.

Also uncertain is how defense procurement contracts would be affected. Defense officials said that Pentagon contract officers are likely to put off signing any new contracts until the budget stalemate is resolved. “For the next several weeks, virtually all contracting will come to a standstill,” one senior Pentagon official said.

--The National Science Foundation said 21,000 researchers would lose financial support because of the spending cuts.

--At the Environmental Protection Agency, Edward J. Hanley, deputy assistant administrator for administration, said employees would face as many as six days of furlough in the first two weeks, starting Monday.

As a result, he said, all work at Superfund toxic wastes sites would be halted, and the agency’s ability to implement the new Clean Air Act amendments and the Clean Water Act requirements would be severely hampered.

--The Energy Department said that the spending cuts could delay by a full year any cleanup of the department’s heavily polluted nuclear weapons production sites and force the department to defer indefinitely any work toward the construction of new bomb production facilities.

--At NASA, the cutbacks may lead to the postponement or outright cancellation of some space shuttle launchings, a spokesman said. In addition, programs such as the Mars Initiative and the development of the space station would face delays.

To be sure, some agencies are unlikely to be affected in the short term--including the Centers for Disease Control, the Food and Drug Administration, the Public Health Service and the National Institutes of Health.

They said emergency response teams will be available in the event of a major epidemic or a widespread food contamination incident.

An FBI spokesman said agents around the country will be furloughed but added: “We’re not going to shut down operations, of course.”

Times Washington Bureau staff writers John M. Broder, Sue Ellen Christian, Marlene Cimons, Sam Fulwood III, Melissa Healy, Robert Jackson, Maura Reynolds and Jennifer Toth contributed to this story.