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REAGAN ASKS WIDE CUTS IN PRGRAMS TO AID POOR
![REAGAN ASKS WIDE CUTS IN PRGRAMS TO AID POOR](https://s1.nyt.com/timesmachine/pages/1/1983/01/29/197219_360W.png?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale)
President Reagan's new budget proposes further cutbacks in Federal programs for poor people, including welfare, food stamps and nutrition assistance for children, in an effort to save $14 billion over the next five years.
An advance summary of the President's budget, circulated today on Capitol Hill, shows that Mr. Reagan again plans to ask Congress to require welfare and food stamp recipients to work in return for their benefits. Congress has already given states the option of establishing such ''workfare'' programs, but rejected the President's earlier requests to make them mandatory.
States have moved slowly in establishing workfare programs. Thirty states have experimented with such programs for welfare or food stamp recipients, but in most cases the programs are not statewide and do not cover all people deemed to be employable.
The budget would also require millions of elderly people to pay more for health insurance and medical services provided in the Medicare program. The Administration wants to increase the deductibles and the premiums that people pay under Part B of Medicare, which provides insurance coverage for doctors' bills, laboratory services and other outpatient care. The proposal is likely to face strong resistence in Congress.
The budget plan said that changes approved by Congress over the last two years, at Mr. Reagan's request, had curtailed the ''explosive welfare spending growth'' of the 1970's. But the budget document expresses concern that, without further changes, benefit programs for poor people would cost the Federal Government $243 billion from 1984 through 1988. 'Means-Tested' Programs
Accordingly, Mr. Reagan said he would propose further changes designed to reduce the cost of the ''means-tested'' benefit programs by 5.6 percent, or nearly $14 billion below what they would otherwise cost in the five-year period. Under a means test, the Government grants benefits only to people whose incomes or assets are below specified level.
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