GET OUT YOUR HANDKERCHIEFS

TIME Washington correspondent Suneel Ratansays Domenici -- the Senate's chief budgeteer -- plans to announce Thursday his plans for cutting an "unimaginable" $1 trillion from projected federal spending over the next seven years in a bid to fulfill the GOP promise to balance the budget by 2002. Roughly a third of those proposed cuts are expected to come from projected Medicare spending. Ratan says that both parties believe such cuts are necessary, and now Domenici is throwing down the gauntlet.