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Clinton asks Congress for cuts
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — President Clinton sent Congress a $1.52 trillion no-frills budget yesterday, declaring that cuts in hundreds of programs would achieve a deficit-reduction record unequaled since the Truman administration.
But Clinton dismissed the criticism, saying his new budget showed the world that "we mean business" about cutting the deficit. Still, he conceded his plan would face a difficult time in Congress.
Clinton's federal spending plan for 1995 includes no new general tax increases. It does propose more than tripling the cigarette tax to 99 cents a pack, and it puts forward almost three dozen fee increases.
Liberals complained that the budget cuts would hurt the poor. Conservatives said the president virtually ignored the cost of putting into effect his two most important initiatives — health care and welfare reform.
"It's the toughest budget on spending cuts that Congress has yet seen," Clinton said. But he also said Congress could not waver from the deficit plan he initiated last year and that he said had brought prosperity by lowering interest rates.
Clinton's 1995 budget contained litte in new initiatives, basically keeping faith with last year's five-year deficit reduction program that had boosted the gasoline tax and raised taxes on the wealthy while restraining government spending.
Spending on the one-third of the budget affected by annual appropriations — everything from paper clips to battleships — would actually decline by $7.7 billion below the current level, something that has not happened for a quarter of a century.
And for the first time since Harry Truman was president, the deficit will have shrunk for three consecutive years, if Clinton's forecasts prove accurate. The president projected that the deficit for 1955 would drop to $176.1 billion. That would be down from a projected deficit of $234.8 billion this year. When Clinton took office, it was expected that the 1995 deficit would be $302 billion.
But as the price for cutting the deficit, Clinton had to work with tight spending caps that forced him to cut spending for more than 200 programs and eliminate 115 others altogether.
The program that pays heating bills for millions of poor Americans would be cut by $707 million, and several of the largest public housing programs would be sharply reduced as well.
The National Alliance to End Homelessness welcomed Clinton's 60 percent increase in spending on the homeless, but it said the increase was financed "by taking funds from permanent housing programs that are, for many Americans, the only safety net between them and homelessness."
Republicans belittled the size of Clinton's cuts and said he would not be able to achieve them without Republican help.
"To his credit the president has proposed terminating some federal programs, representing about one-fifth of 1 percent of the federal budget," said Senate Republican Leader Bob Dole. "We have seen most of the proposed cuts before, but congressional Democrats refused to go along when Republican administrations wielded the budget knife."
The budget is based on a projection that the economy, as measured by the gross domestic product, will expand by 3 percent this year.
While avoiding any new general tax increases, the Clinton budget proposed raising $11.6 billion in 1995 by increasing the tax on tobacco products. It would raise another $1.5 billion by increasing more than 30 fees for such things as meat inspections, bankruptcy filings and admission to national parks.
Clinton'sbudget
TAXES,FEES
Some key proposals in President Clinton's proposed $1.52 trillion budget for fiscal year 1995:
SOCIAL WELFARE. HEALTH
Federal tobacco tax increases from 24 cents a pack to 99 cents a pack to help finance administration's proposed health care plan.
SUGAL WELFIE, HEALTH
$673 billion for the Department of Health and Human Services, an agency of 64.4 billion, over 1994. Some $888 million to purchase vaccines for poor children. Also $2.7 billion, a 6 percent increase, for AIDS research, prevention and treatment.
LAWENFORCEMENT
$11.3 billion for the Justice Department, up slightly from $10.8 billion this year. Boosts aid for states and municipalities to put 50,000 more police officers on the street and increase the number of agents patrolling the border with Mexico. Does not fund in full 100,000 more police officers for which Clinton has called.
Clinton endorses Bosnian air strikes
JORS AND LABOR
Source: The Associated Press KANSAN
Outlets for Labor Department jobs and training rise to $4.8 billion, from about $4.5 billion this year.
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Clinton yesterday endorsed a U.N. call for NATO approval of air strikes against Bosnian Serbs and Secretary of State Warren Christopher said the allies would consider a range of actions this week.
In a Houston speech largely devoted to economic issues, Clinton said he had hoped U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali would ask NATO to authorize military retaliation for attacks on Muslim civilians in Sarajevo.
But, the president said, "until those folks get tired of killing each other over there, bad things will continue to happen."
He did not explain what other actions might be taken, but said that apart from the attack Saturday, for which there was only a strong presumption of Bosnian Serb responsibility, the Serbs had carried out a series of assaults on civilians.
On Capitol Hill, meanwhile, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee called for using NATO air strikes against Bosnian Serbs besieging the capital. A senior Republican senator said it was time to end the "indecisiveness of NATO."
"The appropriate thing now is to see if this horrible incident can be the spur to a vigorous effort to a
Christopher, apparently going beyond the U.N. official's threat, said, "We will respond to the specific, rather narrow request of Boutros-Ghali," later this week in Brussels. "But we will not be limited by that," he told reporters after Clinton's advisers met for a second consecutive day on the mounting bloodshed in Bosnia.
Boutros-Ghali urged the North Atlantic Council on Sunday to approve air strikes for an attack on a Sarajevo market Saturday in which 68 people were killed and more than 200 wounded.
Clinton said Sunday that while the possibility of retaliation against the Serbs was "certainly discussed at considerable length" with his advisers he was inclined to focus on reaching a negotiated settlement to the war in Bosnia.
peace agreement. That's what we ought to focus on now," Clinton said.
Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Ind., and Sen Richard Lugar, R-Ind., agreed during a joint appearance on NBC yesterday that it was time to use air power, but they parted on how broad the military response should be.
Hamilton said air strikes were "in order for fairly limited purposes." He defined that as "to prevent the siege of Sarajevo, to stop that shelling. And also it's necessary to help move the humanitarian aid forward and protect the U.N. troops."
Long an advocate of lifting the arms embargo against the Bosnian Muslims, Lugar said U.S. leadership was needed to override divisions among Western nations.
"There are all sorts of views, so many views that nothing has occurred," he said. "And indecisiveness of NATO and friendly nations in the West has been obvious, not only to the Serbs but to everybody in the area."
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