B-2 survives budget knife
     WASHINGTON (July 29, 1997 5:21 p.m. EDT) -- The B-2 stealth
 bomber evaded another attack on its funding Tuesday, with the House
 voting for new planes not requested by the White House or the
 Pentagon.
     The B-2 debate was part of a bill providing $248 billion for
 defense programs in fiscal 1998. The bill, which gives the Pentagon
 $4.4 billion more than the administration requested,
 passed 322-105.
     "This Congress should never be ashamed to stand up to the Penta-
 gon and say they are wrong," Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., said in
 urging his colleagues to support a fiscal 1998 budget providing
 start-up money to add nine more B-2s to the existing fleet of 21
 radar-eluding bombers.
     In a 222-200 vote, the House rejected an amendment by Rep. David
 Obey, D-Wis., that would have removed $331 million, the money for
 the new planes, from the $505 million appropriated for the B-2.
     The administration has threatened to veto the $248 billion
 defense spending bill if the extra money for new B-2s is included,
 and the Senate version of the bill goes along with the administration
 request for less money.
     The defense bill also includes a 2.8 percent pay raise for mili-
 tary and defense civilian personnel, $1.5 billion for the Bosnia
 operation and $3.7 billion for the Ballistic Missile Defense
 Organization.
     Before final passage, House members rejected by 290-137 one
 amendment that would have frozen spending at last year's level of
 $244 billion, while accepting another barring the sale of the next-
 generation F-22 fighter plane to foreign governments.
     The Senate, meanwhile, voted 99-0 to pass a $31.6 billion bill
 to fund the departments of Commerce, Justice and State in fiscal
 1998. More than half that money, $17.2 billion, goes to the Justice
 Department for narcotics and other crime prevention, immigration
 control and the federal prison system.
     B-2 funding is an annual fight in Congress. Last month, the
 House voted 216-209 on a similar amendment to cut B-2 funds from
 a bill authorizing Pentagon programs.
     Opponents of the B-2 said the $331 million was feed money for a
 program to build nine planes that could cost up to $27 billion and
 which the Pentagon says it neither needs nor can afford.
     "How many children can we educate for over $1 billion? How many
 people can we save for over $1 billion?  What could we do with $27
 billion? It staggers the imagination," said Rep. Ronald Dellums,
 D-Calif.
     But supporters argued that the long-range bomber is crucial when
 the United States has decreasing access to air bases overseas and
 the technology on the B-52 and B-1 becomes outdated. "The B-2 is
 fundamental to America's continued leadership as we recognize that
 fewer of our overall assets are going to be available for national
 defense," said Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Calif.
     The Senate and the administration were generally in sync on the
 Commerce-Justice-State bill, which provides $1.4 billion for Pres-
 ident Clinton's cops-on-the-street program, has funding for 1,000
 new border patrol agents, and funds the Commerce Department, which
 Republicans in the past have tried to close down, with $4.23
 billion.
     Unlike the House bill, which threatens to withhold money from
 the Census Bureau if it uses sampling in the year 2000 census, the
 Senate bill contains language on the sampling dispute that the
 administration says it can live with.
     House Republicans are strongly opposed to the use of sampling
 to determine populations in urban areas, saying it could affect how
 future legislative districts are drawn.
     The Senate bill does have one provision opposed by the admini-
 stration, an amendment to divide the Ninth Federal Circuit Court of
 Appeals, the largest circuit court encompassing California and eight
 other western states.
     Senators approved by voice vote an amendment making it easier
 for victims of domestic violence to get help from the Legal Services
 Corp. Under the provision, sponsored by Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn.,
 only the victim's personal assets - not those of the spouse or those
 jointly held -- would be counted in determinating qualification for
 the legal help for the poor.
     The Legal Services Corp. itself would get $300 million under the
 Senate bill. That's $40 million less than Clinton requested, but
 still far higher than the $141 million appropriated by the House,
 which has been trying to phase it out since 1995.
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 Posted for the parts on B-2, F22 and missile defense.  Jim
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