Budget: thanks to Thanksgiving. (Congress completes 1990 budget proposal) (American Survey)

Economist (US), The, November, 1989

Budget

Thanks to Thanksgiving

NOTHING speeds up work like an approaching holiday. Congress, determined to adjourn before Thanksgiving on November 23rd, broke up at 4am on November 22nd. This has meant putting off action on child care, clean air, housing and many other bills until January. But two bits of business were finished: the budget for fiscal 1990 (which began on October 1st) and the scrapping of the 1988 catastrophic-illness act.

The budget package, which purports to cut the 1990 deficit by about $15 billion to around $105 billion, replaces the $16 billion Gramm-Rudman cuts--but not entirely. The biggest single saving ($5 billion) comes from allowing the automatic monthly cuts to continue until February. Over half the remaining...