The Budget's Hidden Horrors

Congressman Charles Wilson, a tall Texas Democrat with a signature swagger, carried a grudge against the Defense Intelligence Agency. In Pakistan in 1986, the agency had refused to fly Wilson's companion, a former Miss U.S.A.-World, to a town near the Afghan border where the Congressman was to inspect the progress of the guerrilla war. Just before Christmas, Wilson took revenge. An influential member of a Defense Appropriations subcommittee, he tucked a provision into a spending bill that stripped DIA of two planes, and he eliminated the agency's exemption from Pentagon staff cuts.

Wilson's sleight of hand escaped the notice of most members of Congress, as well as of President Reagan, who signed it into law. And no wonder: the legislation that included the provision was 2,100 pages long, and it lumped together 13 appropriations bills that should have been passed individually. In one gargantuan gulp, the omnibus bill amounted to $603.9 billion, or nearly two-thirds of the total funding for Federal Government operations in fiscal 1988.

Patched together in a furious week of back-room conferences between House and Senate subcommittees, the bill passed both chambers in the wee hours of Dec. 22. Few members even saw a copy of the legislation. "This blind voting is a sad commentary on the world's greatest deliberative body," lamented Republican Senator Malcolm Wallop of Wyoming. In the weeks since, as reporters, lobbyists and more than 200 budget analysts in the executive branch have dug into the budget pie, a number of surprises have come popping out. Complained Budget Director James Miller: "Some are the kinds of things you'd be ashamed to tell your mama about." Among the more questionable items:

-- A cleverly crafted provision requiring the Government to buy $10 million worth of sunflower oil, courtesy of Democratic Senator Quentin Burdick of North Dakota. Budget cutters had defeated an earlier measure, but a new version of the sunflower subsidy program lay hidden in the bill's fertile soil.

-- An award of $16.5 million to New Orleans' Tulane University and Xavier University, a 2,200-student black school, to advise the Defense Department on how to dispose of hazardous waste. The Pentagon had never asked for the advice, but Senator J. Bennett Johnston, a Louisiana Democrat, found time to stuff the chestnuts into the pork roast for his own constituents. Xavier's share of the grant, about $7 million over two years, is its largest contract ever.

-- An antitrust clause that forbids the Federal Communications Commission from allowing Media Mogul Rupert Murdoch to keep the New York Post and Boston Herald as well as television stations in each city.

-- An increase in the speed limit to 65 m.p.h. on many local highways, bypassing concerns about safety.

-- An $8 million grant to North African Jews in France to build a parochial school promoted by a campaign contributor of Democratic Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii.