Word: gramm
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Congress is still weary from its struggle with the 1987 budget. In the end the lawmakers decided to let federal spending pass the once inconceivable $1 trillion mark this year. Their final spending bill anticipated a deficit of $154 billion, as permitted by Gramm-Rudman. But the Congressional Budget Office now projects a 1987 deficit of $174.5 billion, and some private economists say it may go as high as $190 billion...
...many ways Reagan's 1988 budget seems like a wishful blueprint for a miracle. The President proposes to slash the deficit to $108 billion, the 1988 target prescribed by the Gramm-Rudman law, without a tax increase and while still boosting defense spending by 3%, after adjustment for inflation. The deficit reduction would come entirely through further cuts in social and other nondefense spending, along with short-term expedients like sales of Government assets. But private economists are almost universally doubtful that the formula can work. Charles Schultze, a Brookings Institution scholar who was President Carter's chief economic adviser...
...Reagan has proposed spending $1.02 trillion against expected revenues of only $916 billion. He thus becomes the first President to send a trillion dollar budget to Capitol Hill. His proposals call for the deficit to be cut to the $108 billion Gramm-Rudman target through a combination of $42 billion in spending reductions and revenue increases. Some $20 billion of that would be trimmed from domestic programs, including mass-transit aid, housing assistance and farm subsidies. Social Security, as usual, remains untouchable...
...many investors are buying up dollar-based securities. But TIME's board expects the slow progress in making budget cuts to continue next year. The deficit in fiscal 1987, which ends next October, will probably ease to $190 billion -- still well above the $144 billion target established by the Gramm-Rudman deficit-reduction law. The economists believe the Iran-contra scandal, among other issues, could distract congressional attention from the job of slashing the fiscal 1988 budget...
...make a dent in the burgeoning budget deficit, Congress must confront either the possibility of a tax increase sometime in the next two years or a loosening of the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings noose. This could be the real test of whether the White House and the Democratic Congress will end up seeking compromise or confrontation. Reagan is sure to oppose any outright tax increase, just as he has done in the past. And the Democrats will be as wary as ever of being out front on the issue. But some package of spending cuts and revenue raising seems necessary...