GOP Seeks Increase in Clinton’s Pentagon Budget

Congressional Republicans declared Tuesday that they will push to increase the Clinton administration’s proposed $242.6-billion Pentagon budget to avert projected cuts in military procurement and missile defense programs.

At a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, GOP lawmakers chided Defense Secretary William J. Perry for having reduced spending on modernization programs to “perilous” levels and renewed demands for early deployment of an antimissile defense system now in the works.

Perry warned the panel that he will consider recommending a veto if Congress appropriates additional money for the controversial B-2 radar-evading bomber, as the lawmakers did in the current year’s defense bill despite the administration’s opposition.

Gen. John M. Shalikashvili, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the same panel that he thinks it is unfair to require the armed forces to discharge service members who are found to be HIV-positive, as a bill Congress passed early this year would do.

Shalikashvili said that the services already have procedures to handle members who have medical problems that prevent them from being deployed. The discharge requirement, drafted by Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove), is slated to take effect this summer.

The criticisms by Senate Republicans are likely to be echoed by their counterparts in the House today, when Perry and Shalikashvili appear before the House National Security Committee.

Republicans in both houses are expected to seek to boost the military budget as part of a drive to portray the administration as soft on defense.

The administration’s new defense budget would slash spending for purchases of new weapons and equipment to $38.9 billion for fiscal 1997, which begins Oct. 1--down from $42.3 billion in the current fiscal year and 70% below its level a decade ago.