Word: budgeted
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...anthem to the Reagan revolution: the tax cuts -- including a call for new reduction in the rate on capital gains -- the five-year economic boom, the resurgence of patriotism. Then the President also planned an ode to the Nicaraguan "freedom fighters." And of course there was a section of budget-deficit blues, a put- the-blame-on-Congress thumper ending with that ancient standard: the call for a line-item veto...
While Reagan has been delivering that last hoary number for the better part of a decade, the tune did not originate with him. Ever since Ulysses S. Grant in 1876, Presidents have asked Congress for the power to reject individual appropriations without wiping out an agency's entire budget. Reagan has argued that a line-item veto would allow him to rein in the big spenders on Capitol Hill and bring down the deficit. Says a White House aide: "What we're talking about is changing a pattern of behavior that has existed for a long time...
...hand it to the Executive. But recent events have conspired to give the idea some weight. The Oct. 19 stock-market crash shocked Washington into the realization that the U.S. economy will not be able to endure continuing federal deficits of $170 billion or more. Then Government's budget "summiteers," after much agonizing, produced a puny two-year, $76 billion deficit reduction package. Just before Christmas, Congress presented the President with a $603.9 billion spending bill for fiscal year 1988. The 2,100-page law was packed with pork-barrel goodies to please lawmakers' constituents...
...State of the Union address, Reagan planned to bring up several examples of those excesses, totaling $4.4 billion, culled from an 80-page list compiled by researchers in the White House Office of Management and Budget. Among the candidates: a $300,000 grant for grackle control in the Rio Grande Valley; $240,000 for a study of the damage done to macadamia nuts by rats; $1.4 million for a catfish farm in Stuttgart, Ark.; and -- in a special dig at the legislators -- $500,000 to bring leaders of emerging democracies to the U.S. to study the workings of Congress...
...Capitol Hill, Reagan's case for the line-item veto suddenly seems a little more convincing. "I used to think the line-item veto was the stupidest idea in the world," says Stephen Bell, former staff director of the Senate Budget Committee. "I was wrong." Republican Senator Bob Packwood of Oregon thinks Congress will eventually be forced to pass the reform. "We're going to be ridiculed into doing it," he says. "I've come to the conclusion that we are not going to be capable of governing ourselves." In discussing the veto, Senator Ted Kennedy recently said something...