ANTI-DRUG PROPOSAL TARGETS CRIMINALS

Washington - President Clinton proposed a $215 million anti-drug project for
convicted criminals Tuesday. On Thursday, he's scheduled to outline new
plans for education spending. Both come on the heels of new federal spending
plans for defense, food safety and long-term health care that will be
included next month in Clinton's annual budget, and more such unveilings are
on the way.

The administration refuses to reveal how it would pay for the new programs.
When pressed for details on a proposed $1,000 tax credit for long-term care
of elderly relatives, Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala
would say only that it would be financed from unspecified revenues.

Her response did not surprise Robert Bixby, policy director of the Concord
Coalition, a bipartisan group that urges budget restraint. "People always
leak the good news and not the bad news," he said.

Bixby expressed concern about the push for spending by Clinton and by some
in the Republican-led Congress. Already, fiscal watchdog groups point out,
last year's federal budget surplus of $70 billion is projected to fall
slightly this year, partly because of a burst of spending in last fall's
budget deal.

The military is a major focus for the budget-watchers.

At the Committee for a Responsible Budget, a non-partisan private group,
Susan Tanaka warned that Clinton's long-term health care tax credit proposal
could create a long-term fiscal problem. The initial cost, about $6 billion
over five years, "doesn't seem like a lot of money," she said. "But those
kinds of programs become very expensive when you have a lot more people that
need care. So we have programs that look inexpensive, but end of up costing
a lot of money."

Under balanced-budget agreement rules, the president's completed budget must
include spending cuts or new revenues to offset additional spending. For
example, the administration called last year for new tobacco taxes to pay
for initiatives. Tanaka predicts that proposal, rejected by the last
Congress, will be renewed.

Congressional Republicans are expected to resist such tax increases and push
instead for tax breaks, such as ending the so-called marriage penalty under
the current income tax system.

However, if recent history is a guide, Congress and the president both will
seek ways to ignore the budget caps placed on government programs. In the
last-minute rush to finish the budget last year, they agreed to label $21
billion as "emergency" spending so that it would not be subject to spending
limits.