Word: budgeteering
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...congressional agenda reflects the members' cost-cutting mood. "Congress has an eye toward fiscal restraint," says Byrd. "In the last Congress we cut appropriations about $15 billion. In the upcoming Congress, we'll see a continuation of that mood." Edmund Muskie, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, says he is determined to hold the line on spending. He admits that his committee work has modified his views. "I have been educated," he says. "I have become convinced that we've got to be more prudent and restrained and selective...
...combat inflation, Jimmy Carter has proposed a relatively lean fiscal 1980 budget of $531.6 billion with a deficit of $29 billion. Congress may want to reduce it even more. At his first meeting with legislative leaders on the second day of the session, Carter was pleased to learn from an aide that there is a "good mood on the Hill, an attitude of 'Let's get to work on the tough ones right away.' " So the President immediately threw a couple of tough ones into the hopper. Once again, he has asked for his hospital cost containment...
House members generally agree that the budget will be the main item of busi ness this session and that it should be as lean as possible. Even liberals acknowledge that the nation's problems do not appear to yield to money and to Government intervention. "We haven't had the pruning of the programs that don't work," admits Abner Mikva, a leading liberal Democrat who was re-elected from Chicago's North Shore suburbs by a scant 1,000 votes. "Because of that, all of Government is carrying a burden of presumed incompetence and inefficiency...
Fights will doubtless occur over which parts of the budget to trim. Probably the biggest clash will be on defense spending, which Carter wants to boost by 3% in real dollars. Exercising more influence in the Budget Committee than in the House as a whole, advocates of increased social spending may be able to prevent the hike in military spending. Says David Obey, a liberal Democrat from Wisconsin: "I am not going to tell old people that they have to bear a double load because our NATO allies need more money for defense...
...scientists will have to be satisfied with pictures of the mysterious Red Planet, rather than an eyewitness view; NASA's dream of sending man to Mars has been dashed by earthly budget cuts. At the 145th national meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science last week in Houston, Edward C. Ezell, a space historian, argued that the manned-flight blueprints at least be kept for future generations. Some day, he said sadly, "the dreamer quality of science" will be restored...