Balance The Budget

Maryland's legislative leaders say the state budget, now $242 million in the red, can be balanced without layoffs.The legislature's fiscal analysts have come up with a menu of budget cuts that would hit sounder plans lawmakers are considering."

It seemed odd that Gov. William Donald Schaefer would miss the final Orioles' game in Memorial Stadium and ceremonies at the new stadium he had championed.His press secretary, Frank Traynor, initially said Schaefer decided not to go after he learned about the death of a friend shortly before the game Sunday and became saddened.Yesterday, Schaefer offered a different reason for his absence."It was just suggested I not come. I reluctantly complied," the governor said during his weekly radio show on WBAL.

An article in yesterday's editions incorrectly indicated that the House and Senate had approved identical versions of the Republicans' bill to balance the budget. In fact, the Senate made minor changes to the House version before passing it. As a result, the House must now approve the Senate's version for the bill to be passed by Congress.The Sun regrets the errors.WASHINGTON -- With the government still partially shut down, Congress approved yesterday the core of the Republicans' revolutionary drive to balance the budget, shrink government, cut taxes and scale back social programs.

WASHINGTON -- The political truce that President Clinton and the Republican majority in Congress declared late last week broke down in a war of words on the nation's TV talk shows yesterday as Democrats and Republicans clashed over spending cuts, taxes and a constitutional amendment to balance the federal budget.Accusing Mr. Clinton of firing the first shot by distorting the remarks that he and other GOP leaders made at a White House meeting Thursday, House Majority Leader Dick Armey, Republican of Texas, said the president had "no connection with reality" when he suggested that the Republicans have conceded that the trickle-down economics of the Reagan era were a mistake.

WASHINGTON -- Brushing aside last-minute criticisms and attempts to shift priorities, Congress moved late yesterday toward approving a five-year plan to cut taxes and balance the federal budget."

ANNAPOLIS -- Maryland's worsening financial crisis, coupled with strong opposition from local educators, may have doomed an administration proposal to spend $19 million on a "Schools for Success Fund," despite a personal appeal yesterday by Gov. William Donald Schaefer.Yesterday, the governor urged members of the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee to pass the bill this year. Sen. Laurence Levitan, D-Montgomery, who chairs the committee, said he saw little chance of that happening."The opposition was so overwhelming it was amazing," said Senator Levitan.

Howard County Executive Charles I. Ecker said yesterday that he does not expect to raise taxes in July, despite an anticipated deficit of $10 million or more in the fiscal 1994 budget."

(TC WHILE REPUBLICANS contend that President Clinton has made a "sacred commitment" to balance the budget in seven years and Democrats hold just as adamantly that he has an "escape clause" in the proviso that to preserve key social programs, it is time to focus on what may be -- and should be -- the real crux issue: taxes.Under the massive GOP budget bill now heading for a presidential veto, the Republicans propose to cut taxes over their prized seven-year period by a staggering $245 billion.

Gov.-elect Martin O'Malley will include full funding for a key land-preservation program in his budget for next year, keeping a major campaign promise to the state's environmentalists, his administration announced yesterday. Money from Program Open Space, which is funded through transfer taxes on real estate transactions, was shifted to other programs in recent years to help balance the budget. Although O'Malley faces a small revenue shortfall this year and larger ones in the near future, he said in a letter to environmental groups that he will fully fund the preservation program in the fiscal year that starts July 1. "The structural deficit will force us to make difficult decisions together and require structural reforms to make our government more efficient, but we must also continue to make the critical investments necessary to move our state forward - investments in programs like Program Open Space," O'Malley wrote.

WASHINGTON -- Ross Perot declared yesterday that President Clinton's $500 billion deficit reduction package would "damage the country" and vowed to wage an aggressive campaign to defeat it.The Texas billionaire declared in a telephone interview that he will launch a television blitz and direct his organization, United We Stand, America, in a concerted campaign to kill the president's plan. A House-Senate conference committee is expected to report the plan to the House and Senate by the end of this week, with final action scheduled for next week before Congress recesses for the summer on Aug. 6.An active campaign by Mr. Perot could deal a crushing blow to the Clinton plan, which is on shaky ground in Congress, and in turn seriously damage the president.