Word: gramm
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Confusion and agony dominate the debate. Confusion, because no one can say which of the proposed cuts in Government spending might become law. The drastic ones recommended in Ronald Reagan's new budget? The arbitrary ones contemplated by the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act? Whatever might emerge from a tortured compromise between President and Congress? Agony, because one thing is quite clear in any event: whenever, however and by whomever the job is done, any major shrinking of the gargantuan federal deficit must involve spending surgery that will hurt more citizens more seriously than ever. As that realization sinks...
...have deficit reduction, and it is going to affect everybody," he remarked. At best, Reagan's opponents hope to slash the Pentagon budget enough so that reductions in civilian outlays will be less draconian than the President proposes. But those cuts would still be severe. And this year the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act, despite its murky status, ensures that the issue will not slide...
...under pressure to cut spending lest they be accused of dereliction of duty by permitting the deficit to go on growing. Said Rudman: "The fallback procedure, I believe, will work--not with the certainty of the original (automatic) provision, but it will work." Said House Democratic Whip Thomas Foley: "Gramm-Rudman may rule from the grave...
Though there is no chance that Congress will enact the President's budget intact, his proposals offer a rough guide to who might be hurt by the spending reductions everyone agrees are inevitable. Even if Congress reaches some alternative, or if Gramm-Rudman-Hollings comes into play, the programs targeted by the President are bound to be affected. With so much cutting to be done, and more than half of the budget (Social Security, other entitlements and interest on the national debt) legally or politically off limits, almost every discretionary spending program will be at risk. Among the areas...
Many legislators and economists maintain that Congress and the Administration will have to boost taxes in order to keep the 1987 deficit to the $144 billion mark that Gramm-Rudman requires. Board Member Feldstein thinks that taxes will eventually have to be raised, but that the Administration will not go along with an increase until after the 1986 congressional elections, "when the magnitude of the problem will be clearer...