New Polish budget seeks help for the crisis-ridden

The Sejm (parliament) passed a tight budget for 1982 amid increasingly gloomy reports of falling living standards and failure of the administration to carry out a far-reaching economic reform program.

The budget laid a heavy emphasis on providing for social groups badly affected by the crisis. The initially proposed deficit was cut in half, to $1.8 billion, after the Sejm Commission called for axing some investments and raising taxes to avoid massive government borrowing.