Clinton to Press Major Deficit Cut: Short-Term Stimulus, Tax Reduction Fade
President-elect Clinton said in an interview released yesterday he is determined to make a major reduction in the federal deficit during his term in office but said to meet his campaign pledge of halving the deficit by 1996 he will have to make deeper spending cuts than he contemplated last summer.</br></br>His choice for budget chief, Rep. Leon E. Panetta (D-Calif.), also said yesterday that cutting the federal deficit is the administrationÛªs top priority and indicated that as a result, administration officials no longer have much interest in shortterm spending to boost the economy and have deemphasized a middle-class tax cut.</br></br>Clinton, in an interview with the Public Broadcasting System, said that by the end of his term he still hopes to cut the deficit by at least $145 billion from this year's level. The $145 billion would have been about half the 1993 deficit that was projected when he made the pledge.</br></br>But according to Clinton, since he first said he would halve the deficit, tax and spending projections have worsened and that to meet his goal he will have to be harsher than he anticipated.</br></br>"WeÛªre going to have to cut more in other places ... than we would have thought ... because the deficit's gotten bigger. And weÛªre going to have to move more aggressively on the health care front," he said in tile PBS interview conducted last weekend. But he said the country must still pursue an "investment program" to foster long-term economic growth.