The Week

Secretary of Interior James Watt is in deep trouble after declaring Chappaquiddick a wilderness area, off limits to joy riders.

In its expiring moments, the 97th Congress lopped another $18 billion or so off the Reagan Administration’s already reduced military appropriations requests. The net figure—$232 billion—represents a marginal real-dollar increase over levels implicit in the Carter Administration’s final projection for FY 1983. The bites include reductions of $3 billion for personnel; $4 billion for operations and maintenance; $9.5 billion for procurement; and $1.7 billion for research, development, testing, and evaluation. MX and Pershing II production (both of them funded in Carter times) were cut, but the A-10 aircraft program was spared, thanks, perhaps, to its being produced in the home district of the chairman of the pertinent House subcommittee, Representative Joseph P. Addabbo. The big question concerning the Administration’s upcoming requests for FY 1983 is whether they will be subjected to even more drastic piecemeal cutting by an even more deficient Congress.

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Secretary of Interior James Watt is in deep trouble after declaring Chappaquiddick a wilderness area, off limits to joy riders.

In its expiring moments, the 97th Congress lopped another $18 billion or so off the Reagan Administration’s already reduced military appropriations requests. The net figure—$232 billion—represents a marginal real-dollar increase over levels implicit in the Carter Administration’s final projection for FY 1983. The bites include reductions of $3 billion for personnel; $4 billion for operations and maintenance; $9.5 billion for procurement; and $1.7 billion for research, development, testing, and evaluation. MX and Pershing II production (both of them funded in Carter times) were cut, but the A-10 aircraft program was spared, thanks, perhaps, to its being produced in the home district of the chairman of the pertinent House subcommittee, Representative Joseph P. Addabbo. The big question concerning the Administration’s upcoming requests for FY 1983 is whether they will be subjected to even more drastic piecemeal cutting by an even more deficient Congress.