COLUMN LEFT / GENE R. La ROCQUE : Clinton Is No Pentagon Slasher : Despite rhetoric about change, he has not proposed ending a single new weapon.

The first important decision that Bill Clinton will have to make as President concerns the size of next year’s federal budget. He will inherit the Bush Administration’s proposed 1994 budget in January and, within about six weeks, will have to reach a decision on how big it will be and where he proposes to spend the money. The decisions he makes, particularly about military spending, will be the clearest possible signal of the direction his presidency will take.

Many people expect Clinton to make big cuts in military spending. Many Americans want this to happen and others fear it. However, campaign positions suggest that there is likely to be little difference between military spending under the new President as compared with his predecessor. Despite all the rhetoric about “change,” big military budgets are going to be around for years to come.

Before the election, Clinton said he would spend just $60 billion less than the Bush Administration’s five-year military plan for 1993-97, which totals $1.4 trillion. That’s only about a 4% reduction from the Pentagon’s wish list. But even those modest savings are in jeopardy. During the campaign, Clinton endorsed a number of weapons that not even the Bush Administration wanted, including the Seawolf submarine and the V-22 tilt-rotor aircraft. Looking for votes, Clinton promised to keep production lines open for weapons that will cost many billions.

Some people may dismiss such weapons endorsements as easily discarded political rhetoric. Since the flap over “read my lips,” however, it may not be easy for a President to reverse himself. Because of the nationwide media attention, millions of Americans know what was said during the heat of the campaign and expect their new President to do what he promised to do. But in the interest of achieving his stated goal of reducing military spending, it may be wise for Clinton to reconsider some of his positions.

When Clinton moves into the White House and takes a closer look at military spending figures, he will discover weapons costs ballooning out of control. For example, the $7 billion to be spent in 1993 on six military aircraft programs, including the V-22, the C-17 cargo plane and the F-22 fighter, which Clinton has endorsed, is just a low opening bid. The total purchase price for these six new warplanes will exceed an astounding $432 billion. Over the years, cost overruns are likely to push the total much higher.

Clinton has not proposed termination of a single new weapon. After President Bush proposed canceling the Seawolf submarine as a clear case of a costly Cold War weapon with no military mission in a post-Soviet world, Clinton supported the construction of two more. Candidate Clinton promised to spend billions to keep thousands of U.S. troops in Europe and Asia to defend our prosperous allies. He has also promised to pursue a modified version of Ronald Reagan’s egregiously expensive Strategic Defense Initiative.

Understatements of military costs aggravate the problem. The Congressional Budget Office reports that current weapons programs and other growing military expenditures will eventually cost up to $65 billion more each year than now planned. The CBO also points out that even if Congress and Clinton support only President Bush’s military program for 1994-95, the 1990 Budget Enforcement Act spending caps still will not be met. To meet them it would be necessary to cut 10% in real terms from all federal spending except entitlements.

If Bill Clinton goes ahead with all of the weapons he promised during the campaign, he has four options: Raise taxes to pay for these weapons; borrow more money to pay for them and increase the national debt; cut other, perhaps more deserving, programs in the military budget, or cut non-military programs to free more money for the military.

Many members of Congress, equally eager for election success this year, supported weapons that are no longer needed. In the past, most politicians were comfortable buying such weapons just because military production generated jobs and profits for constituents. But perhaps Congress, with its many new members, will be able to withstand the pressures from those who build and profit from new weapons. Both President Clinton and Congress may wish to note the wise comment of Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower when he said, “We need adequate defense, but every arms dollar we spend above adequacy has a long-term weakening effect upon the nation and its security.”

If President Clinton takes Ike’s message to heart, perhaps he will act to eliminate weapons no longer needed in the interest of true national security.