Deficit law makes first round of budget cuts

Galen Gruman, Assistant Editor transfer the burden to other areas as Nondefense cuts. Nondefense areas The Balanced Budget and Emergency long as the average is 4.9 percent. The did not suffer such severe cuts because Deficit Control Act, popularly known Defense Department's Advanced the Gramm-Rudman law does not let as the Gramm-Rudman law, cut 4.3 perResearch Projects Agency is perhaps the reductions be transferred from one cent of more than a third of the nation's hardest hit by this shifting of cuts. agency to another. All nonexempt, nonnondefense spending and 4.9 percent of ARPA's original $5.9 million budget defense programs lost 4.3 percent of more than a third of its defense spendfor university research lost $565,000 their budgets. ing as the law went into effect Mar. 1. after Congress reduced the budget in The National Bureau of Standards Programs exempt from the cuts December. ARPA's total $827.8 million science and technology research $1.2 bilinclude Social Security, most welfare budget was cut by $76.7 million. lion budget was cut by $50 million. The programs, interest on the national debt, Because Reagan exempted the StrateDepartment of Energy's general science military payroll, and research into the gic Defense Initiative, ARPA's share of and research funds dropped by $30 milStrategic Defense Initiative"Star Wars" the cuts rose to 9.4 percent to compenlion from $700 million. defense project. Health programs are sate"'With the SDI portions of R&D so The National Aeronautics and Space not exempt from cuts, but are limited to large, other programs will actually have Administration already financially one percent reductions in 1986 and two higher cuts," explained James Turner, a hurt by the loss of the space shuttle percent reductions thereafter. Defense Department spokesman. Challenger in a January postlaunch The law requires $11.7 billion in cuts The SDI budget is $2.8 billion, $241,954 explosion and by the subsequent invesacross the nonexempt programs during of which goes to the program's software tigative costs and loss in revenue from the 1986 fiscal year to help reduce the systems research office. Despite the suspended commercial shuttle missions federal deficit, which will total $220.5 exemption from Gramm-Rudman, the saw its $5.2 billion in funds cut by billion, the Office of Management SDI research has not remained unscathed. $220 million. Budget and the Congressional Budget In December, Congress had cut the SDI The National Science Foundation's Office jointly estimated in mid-January. funds that Reagan had requested by original $1.3 billion budget dropped by Exempt programs together cost $646.3 nearly $1 billion. $58 million. Because the increase from billion. The total budget was $996.5 General defense research and develop1985 to 1986 had been about three perbillion. ment dropped from $1.9 billion to $0.9 cent, the result is a slight decrease in The law also sets maximum allowable billion, while Defense Departmentavailable funds"'It means that every deficits for the rest of the decade. Each sponsored general science and space budget will be looked at a little harder," subsequent allowable deficit is less than research funds were cut from $400 milsaid Thomas Keenan, director of the the previous year's, until the federal lion to $300 million. Total defense NSF's software systems science office. budget is balanced in 1991. The maxiresearch, development, testing, and "The 4.3 percent is a nominal change. mum allowable deficit for 1987 is $144 evaluation spending dropped $1.7 billion We can live with that," he said."The billion. The maximum allowable deficits from its original $35.3 billion budget. great concern is next year," Keenan for 1988, 1989, and 1990 are, respecThe Defense Department's software added, when the across-the-board cuts tively, $108 billion, $72 billion, and $32 initiatives lost $2.2 million, while advanced are predicted to be 8.8 percent"'That billion. Ada development lost $442,000. becomes serious." President Ronald Reagan's proposed $994 billion 1987 budget has a projected deficit of $143.6 billion just under the deficit ceiling. That budget increases Museu features intelligent machines defense spending by six percent and compensates for those increases with The Museum of Science in Boston has Displays will include demonstrations cuts in nondefense programs. announced plans for the first national of robotics, machine vision, speech However, despite the proposal, an museum exhibit devoted to a compretechnology, computer-aided instruction, Office of Management and Budget hensive exploration of the effect of expert systems, natural language techspokesman predicted a 1987 budget defartificial intelligence and robotics on nology, game playing, advanced graphics, icit of $31.9 billion more than Grammsociety and the workplace. and music composition. Rudman allows. That translates to a furCollaborating with the Boston museum ther 8.8 percent cut in 1987 spending. Known as "The Age of the Intelligent in the exhibit are the science museums Machines," the exhibit will begin a in Chicago; Los Angeles; Philadelphia; Defense cuts. Unlike nondefense prothree-year tour of the UJS early next St. Paul, Minnesota; Columbus, Ohio; grams, the Defense Department can year, starting from Boston. An overseas Charlotte, North Carolina; and Fort spare some programs from cuts and tour is being considered. Worth, Texas.