The Blame Game Begins

Reagan's last budget presages a flap over Bush's first

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...

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