Like all those that preceded it, the final budget that President Reagan will unveil this week asks Congress for more spending than revenue. Reagan will nevertheless hail it as a blow against government profligacy, and in the looking-glass world of federal budgetmaking, he will have a point.
The $1.2 trillion spending plan for fiscal 1990 predicts a deficit of $93 billion, a smaller overdraft than those Reagan requested and got in earlier years, when he blamed Democrats for the deficit. It calls for a $4 billion hike in defense spending, $10 billion cuts in programs that mainly benefit the middle class...