DEFENSE BUDGET PLAN BIGGEST SINCE COLD WAR.

Byline: Robert Burns Associated Press 

The Clinton administration proposes in its 2000 budget the biggest pay raise for troops in almost two decades and an increase in spending on high-tech aircraft and other weaponry.

The defense budget submitted to Congress on Monday also seeks authority to close more military bases, a proposal almost certain to generate strong opposition from both Democratic and Republican lawmakers.

It also earmarks $1.8 billion for continued U.S. peacekeeping in Bosnia even as the administration considers deepening its military commitment in the Balkans by sending peacekeepers to Kosovo.

The proposed Pentagon budget is $261 billion, not including $13 billion for the Energy Department's nuclear weapons programs.

That compares with the $264 billion projected to be spent by the Defense Department in the current budget year, which includes $4.5 billion in extra money Congress appropriated to improve overall military preparedness and to pay for the Bosnia and Iraq operations.

Defense Secretary William Cohen said a key goal of the 2000 defense budget is to improve conditions for the troops.

``It's getting harder to recruit and harder to retain quality people in this very strong economy,'' Cohen told a Pentagon news conference.

The budget proposes a 4.4 percent military pay raise in 2000, but Senate Republicans already are pushing for a bigger increase. The Senate Armed Services Committee last week recommended a 4.8 percent increase.

The spending plan is roughly in line with Republican calls for increased spending to modernize the military's weaponry, improve troop living conditions and invest in a national defense against missile attack.

Of the $4 billion increase over 1999 in spending on weaponry, much of the gain would be for Air Force aircraft, including the F-22 fighter produced by Lockheed Martin in Georgia, and for Navy ships and submarines, including the new Virginia-class attack submarine.

Cohen said the defense budget would provide a sustained increase in military spending - the first since the end of the Cold War. But actual year-to-year increases do not begin until 2001, according to the six-year plan sent to Congress. Spending as measured in outlays, or actual dollars spent in the budget year, would go from $261 billion next year to $269 billion in 2001 and reach $318 billion four years later.

The administration bills the 2000 spending plan as an increase of $12 billion, with a total increase of $112 billion through 2005. But the $12 billion represents the difference between what the administration had said a year ago it would spend in 2000 and what it now proposes to spend. Much of the $12 billion is actually savings from lower-than-expected inflation, not new money.

Of the $112 billion in increased spending through 2005, $84 billion would come from projected surpluses in the overall federal budget. The remaining $28 billion would be savings on previously budgeted programs, reflecting lower inflation and other adjustments.