$1.024-Trillion Budget Proposed by President

WASHINGTON — President Reagan today proposed a $1.024-trillion budget for fiscal 1988 and invited a highly skeptical Congress to join him in dealing the federal deficit “a crucial blow” with record cuts in farm and other domestic programs, but without raising taxes.

The spending proposal, Reagan’s seventh and the first ever submitted by any President topping $1 trillion, calls for $42 billion in cuts, program eliminations and other savings, many resurrected from previous Reagan budgets.

The President said these measures would trim the federal deficit to $107.8 billion, a shade under the $108-billion level called for by the Gramm-Rudman budget-balancing law.

But even before the proposal reached Capitol Hill, lawmakers were criticizing White House financial calculations and calling for a thorough rewrite of Reagan’s spending plan.

More Red Ink Claimed

Although Reagan’s document claims only $107.8 billion in red ink, the Congressional Budget Office estimates the figure will actually be about $60 billion higher.

Reagan’s proposal includes no increases in general taxes, but calls for a myriad of program cuts, user fees for government services and sales of government assets--a move that Democratic budget leaders complained is just an attempt to hide tax hikes.

“In submitting this budget, I am doing my part of the bargain--and on schedule,” Reagan said in a message accompanying the budget. “I ask Congress to do the same. If the deficit-reduction goals were to be abandoned, we could see unparalleled spending growth that this nation cannot afford.”

At the same time, the new budget would set up a new $1-billion program designed to help workers displaced from import-battered industries find new careers. And it calls for a $500-million program to combat AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome) and $1 billion in new funds to modernize the nation’s air traffic control system.

Smallest Military Hike

The budget would raise defense spending authority to $312 billion--the smallest military increase yet sought by Reagan but up from $292.9 billion this fiscal year.

The new budget calls for $1.7 trillion in military outlays over the next five years. Reagan said this represents what is “minimally necessary to maintain national security.”

Still, the defense budget promises to be among the most hotly debated of the presidential proposals.

Many of the same programs Reagan unsuccessfully put on the chopping block in previous budgets--Amtrak rail service, college loans, food stamps, housing programs and mass transit--are again targeted in the new proposal for deep cuts or elimination.

Farm programs would come in for some of the deepest cuts of all in the new budget. The proposed changes would reduce government farm target prices by 10% per year “to reduce incentives to overproduce.”

Related budget stories, Page 2.