MORE SMOKE AND MIRRORS

This week saw President Bill Clinton come forward with his ninth proposed budget over the last year -- one that supposedly balances the budget in seven years. In fact, this is another smoke-and-mirrors exercise that is heavy on supposed spending restraint occurring years down the road -- most of them after Clinton will have left office in 2001, should he win a second term. The one place where Clinton can claim to have actually cut spending is the defense budget, now rounding out a full decade of falling spending. From 1993 to 1997, Clinton budget cuts will have slashed defense spending by $37 billion, or 13 percent. This is a modern historic low of $258.7 billion. Is anyone noticing that these cuts occur even as Clinton expands U.S. commitments abroad, as in Bosnia? As the sabers are rattled on mainland China, it isn't hard to look beyond today's complacency and see that this could soon prove disastrous. In fact, in an incredible and mostly ignored scene last week, members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff testified to a congressional committee that the cuts have gone deep into the bone, muscle and sinew of our national defense.

On the crucial issue of runaway entitlement spending, Clinton flunks entirely. His budget doesn't even attempt to rein in this spending, which we know will completely overwhelm the entire federal budget in just a few years unless serious reforms are soon enacted. Clinton's budget proposal isn't really a serious document. Exposing that truth will be one of the major themes you'll hear during this year's campaign.