Word: gramm
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What they and the rest of official Washington were talking about was a novelty called Gramm-Rudman.* Passed by a harried Congress and signed by an equally harried President Reagan during the confusions of the pre-Christmas season, Gramm-Rudman decreed an end to the budget deficits that have become a Washington way of life over the past two decades. Right now. Congress knows that the deficit must be cut, but naturally dreads deciding on its own whose funds should be cut. So the legislators left it to U.S. Comptroller General Charles Bowsher to trim $11.7 billion from this year...
...Gramm-Rudman bill! This simplistic cure-all had been lying around since last summer, gaining a modest amount of support. Now, as an amendment to the bill increasing the debt limit, it became what Co-Sponsor Rudman wryly called "a bad idea whose time has come." There was no time for committee hearings; many members never read the measure that gave away their responsibilities, but they overwhelmingly voted for it; final approval came at 10:15 p.m. on the eve of the prospective default, and then it was soon time to go home for Christmas. Yes, Virginia, there...
Last week's negotiations are nothing, however, compared with the coming struggle over taxes. For Gramm-Rudman does not command specific budget cuts; it only commands that the Government stop spending money it doesn't have. So why can't taxes be raised? Mainly because Ronald Reagan is passionately opposed to raising them, and because House Democrats, whom Reagan likes to blame for past increases, will not cooperate unless Reagan asks them to do so. Reagan will have to "take the hard knocks," as Speaker Tip O'Neill put it. Or as one Senate G.O.P. strategist suggested, "We all have...
...Gramm-Rudman bill, an initiative backed by Congressional Republicans, became a law in December requiring automatic spending cuts in most government programs unless the budget deficit is reduced by a specified amount each year and mandating a balanced budget...
...Gramm-Rudman plan requires that 50% of the automatic cuts come from defense. For the current fiscal year, Pentagon planners will be allowed to find their own way of apportioning the approximately $6 billion required. Although that would entail for the first time since 1979 a reduction in military spending after inflation, it could probably be accomplished thanks to "shock absorber" clauses that apply only for the current fiscal year. In future years, cuts in military spending of 10% or more may have to be made, with little Pentagon discretion about where the ax will fall...