Boondoggles and Booby Traps

Tucked away in the fine print of the House budget bill are a number of concealed cuts, bargaining chips, boondoggles and other booby traps that some Congressmen did not even know they were voting for. Among them:

WINNERS

> Clinch River Breeder Reactor. This troubled nuclear project in Tennessee (450% cost overrun) got $230 million. One reason: Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker is from Tennessee.

> National Aquarium. Once doomed to flounder, it received $400,000 and a new perch at the National Zoo.

> National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities. Reagan cut half of their $309 million, but Congress artfully and humanistically restored it.

> Yachts. To show he was not just soaking the poor, Reagan said he would initiate new $20 user fees for these luxuries. The plan sank.

LOSERS

> Legal Services. A pet ideological target of the Administration, legal aid for the poor was disbarred completely.

> National Consumer Cooperative Bank. Another Reagan ideological peeve, this program to finance cooperative buying ($136 million last year) came up with an empty vault.

> National Science Foundation. This $1 million research program was deleted by the amendment that restored funds for the Clinch River project.

> Nine-Digit Zip Codes. The new budget bans them from federal envelopes, so they will be lost in the mail for a while.

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