The Nation - News from Aug. 1, 1986

President Reagan signed legislation upholding $11.7 billion in spending cuts made last March as the first step in reducing the federal deficit under the Gramm-Rudman balanced-budget law. The across-the-board automatic cuts were invalidated by the Supreme Court when it ruled that the law’s automatic budget-cutting mechanism was unconstitutional. But the $11.7-billion worth of reductions was reaffirmed by Congress last month under the theory that it would be too disruptive to restore money already cut and would make it more difficult to lower the current federal deficit, which now is expected to exceed $200 billion.