Deficit-Cutting Wilts In Heat From Voters; Entitlements Remain Mostly Off-Limits Series: GOVERNMENT GRIDLOCK Series Number: 2/5
In a bar chart accompanying an article yesterday about government gridlock and the federal budget, the legends for discretionary domestic spending and international spending were transposed. (Published 8/5/92)</br></br>In April, Sen. Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.) suggested a plan for digging out of the massive federal deficit. His idea seemed modest on its face but was revolutionary by Washington standards.</br></br>Domenici proposed capping cost-of-living increases in entitlement programs, the automatic spending engines such as Medicaid, Medicare and federal retirement that are exempt from annual congressional review.</br></br>For years, these politically sensitive programs that make up more than half the $1.4 trillion in annual federal spending have been kept largely off-limits to budget cutters, despite their awesome impact on the deficit. As Domenici soon discovered, tampering with those programs is explosive business.</br></br>Even before his proposal took shape, more than 3,000 New Mexico constituents sent him identical postcards opposing any effort to cap entitlement programs.