A CUTTING CONGRESS

Capitol Hill Republicans today vowed to re-write President Clinton's $1.6 trillion spending plan because it projects some $200 billion in annual deficits and fails to balance the budget by 2002. The President defended his budget in part by claiming some of the new spending--$1 billion of it--would go to fight illegal immigration. But the major budget battle lines were being drawn over Medicare, one of several popular entitlements that Clinton did not touch in his proposal to trim $144 billion over five years. Some Democrats also gave Clinton's budget a tepid review, complaining that his $8.1 billion deficit-reduction initiative is too little and that his $63 billion tax cut--part of his "Middle Class Bill of Rights"--is too much.