WASHINGTON -- President Clinton will propose $1.6 trillion of spending in his 1996 budget, and he would more than offset the cost of a middle-class tax cut with savings in other areas of the budget. But he still falls far short of Republican demands for a balanced budget in the year 2002.
Mr. Clinton's budget request, to be submitted to Congress on Monday, shows a deficit of $196.7 billion for the 1996 fiscal year, up slightly from the $192.5 billion that he projects for this year. Although his budget message boasts that his economic policies have sharply reduced the deficit from record levels, he says the deficit will probably stay in the range of $190 billion through 2005.
The budget is always a political document, and a theme of Mr. Clinton's 1996 budget is that he wants to "work with Congress," now controlled by Republicans. Indeed, he appears to be in a race with them as he tries to eliminate or consolidate programs or transfer them to the states or to private industry.
Parts of the Clinton budget echo House Speaker Newt Gingrich. "The American people remain deeply dissatisfied with how their government works," the budget says. "Many programs, perhaps even whole agencies, have outlived their usefulness."
In confidential galley proofs of the budget, Mr. Clinton says he can "save $2 billion by ending more than 130 programs" and "provide better service to Americans by consolidating more than 270 other programs."
For example, he asks Congress to abolish the Interstate Commerce Commission and to eliminate the role of the Army Corps of Engineers in the control of beach erosion, "local flood protection" and the construction of recreational harbors.
He says private meteorologists should take over some functions of the National Weather Service. He would rely on private businesses to track and communicate with spacecraft like the space shuttle. And he asks Congress to terminate 37 small "low-priority" education programs.
But budget documents show that Mr. Clinton will propose a major increase in his national service program, Americorps, which has been denounced by Mr. Gingrich as a form of "coerced volunteerism."
The number of participants, now 20,000, would rise to 33,000 at the end of this year and 47,000 next year under Mr. Clinton's proposal.
Mr. Clinton says his economic policies have slashed the deficit from the record $290 billion in 1992. Still, his proposals would require additional federal borrowing of nearly $1 trillion over five years, and the federal government would spend $194 billion more than it collects in revenue in the year 2000. Mr. Gingrich's "Contract With America" calls for eliminating the deficit by 2002, but the Republicans have not specified the cuts needed to achieve that goal.
The president's $1.6 trillion budget for 1996 breaks down this way: $262 billion, or 16 percent of the total, for the military; $351 billion, or 22 percent, for Social Security; $271 billion, or 17 percent, for Medicare and Medicaid, and $257 billion, or 16 percent, for interest on the federal debt, the accumulated total of federal borrowing.
Only $21 billion, or 1.3 percent of the total, is for foreign aid and other international activities.