WHEN IT COMES TO BUDGETS, WE ALWAYS WANT FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY -- AND ALL THE GOODIES TOO

For the state of Missouri, there was both good news and bad in details of President Clinton's budget. Both varieties were on display inside the defense budget. Bad news focused on the budget's omission of any new orders for Boeing's St. Louis-built F-15 fighter. On the good side, the Pentagon is asking for 42 FA-18E Super Hornet fighters, long a mainstay of American naval power. Boeing also builds the Hornet.

The administration is also seeking a new, $38.6 million training complex at Fort Leonard Wood and more than $12 million for storage and assembly of B-2 stealth bomber weaponry at Whiteman Air Force Base. "Our air capabilities at Whiteman are especially important, as demonstrated during last year's conflict in Yugoslavia and Kosovo," said U.S. Rep. Ike Skelton of Lexington, the top-ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee. He is right.

Led by Skelton and Republicans Sen. Christopher Bond and U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, both of whom who sit on their respective appropriations committees, Missouri's congressional delegation will go to work on the formidable task of getting funding restored for building the F-15.

Of course, it is interesting to observe that some are eager to decry Clinton's spending frenzy while bemoaning the cuts for military hardware. For the most part, it's easy to want it both ways.