The Nation - News from Dec. 9, 1987

The Senate Appropriations Committee approved legislation providing $605.9 billion for federal domestic and military programs this fiscal year, moving Congress a step closer to enacting a deficit-reduction package. The panel sent the measure to the full Senate after turning aside an amendment that would have provided $22.8 million in non-lethal aid to the Nicaraguan Contras through February. Language in the two measures is supposed to cut $30.2 billion from the federal deficit in fiscal 1988 as part of a two-year, $76-billion deficit-reduction plan.