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Reagan sides with Weinberger in proposing minimal defense cuts

Budget Boss David Stockman had the entire Republican leadership of Congress and even most of the Cabinet on his side. Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, an aide admitted, had "a constituency of one." But that constituency is named Ronald Reagan. Overruling Stockman's proposals for deep cuts in military spending, the President decided last week that his deficit-reduction plan will contain only the minimal reductions Weinberger would accept.

Thus with his majority of one, Weinberger won one of the Administration's biggest internal fights. In the process he virtually ensured that the Administration would fail to meet its stated deficit-reduction goals and would once again send to Congress a budget that not even Republican members would support.

Hours after the White House had disclosed the numbers, Weinberger appeared before TV cameras in the Pentagon to spell out the dimensions of his victory. The Secretary announced that Reagan had "very wisely" decided on reductions "that are substantial but not crippling, as some of the proposals would have been." He then gave these details:

> Defense spending in fiscal 1986, which starts next Oct. 1, would be cut $8.7 billion below earlier projections, to $277.5 billion—still more than 5% above the total Congress voted for this fiscal year after allowing for inflation. Superficially, the reduction seems larger than the $8 billion Stockman had asked for, but the difference represents a juggling act with numbers.

> Outlays in 1987 and 1988 would be reduced primarily by the continuing effect of savings begun in 1986; there would be few if any additional cuts. So the trimming over three years would total only $28 billion, less than half the $58 billion Stockman had urged.

> Budget authority, meaning the Pentagon's authorization to sign new contracts, would be even more lightly trimmed.

Stockman had urged cuts totaling $121 billion over the next three fiscal years. Reagan agreed to only $29.6 billion.

The Reagan-Weinberger $259 agreement apparently preserves every procurement program, from the B-1B bomber to the MX missile. Indeed, since Reagan took office almost four years ago, not one weapons system requested by the Pentagon has been canceled.

The trouble with Reagan's military figures is that Congress is in no mood to accept a single one of them. Republican Stephen Bell, majority staff director of the Senate Budget Committee, says that Reagan's "feet will be in concrete" on defense spending and adds, "Most people with their feet in concrete are dead at the bottom of the river." A White House staff member concedes that "the question is whether we are part of the process" or whether Congress will simply ignore Reagan's budget and proceed to write its own.