The Gulf: Bush's Other Summit

The President has skillfully mobilized the battle against Saddam Hussein. Now can he lead the fight against the U.S. deficit?

Like Mikhail Gorbachev, George Bush may have welcomed their rendezvous last weekend as a respite from problems at home. Just before the President departed for Helsinki, he ascended another summit, this one devoted to hammering out a plan to contain the exploding federal deficit.

The urgency of the task facing the congressional and White House budget negotiators, whom Bush left closeted at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, was alarmingly clear. Because of declining revenues from the weak economy, estimates of next year's budget gap are leaping into the stratosphere. Budget Director Richard Darman projects a shortfall for fiscal year 1991...

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