Reagan signs funding bill; fine print may favor MX

December 22, 1982

President Reagan Tuesday signed the emergency funding bill needed to resume the flow of money to federal agencies that technically ran out of funds last Saturday.

Congress denied Mr. Reagan the nearly $1 billion he wanted for production of the MX missile by deleting the funds from the emergency spending bill. But, according to the Wall Street Journal, some legislative fine print will allow the MX to be built anyway. The Journal said five of 20 planned ''test'' models could become ''production'' models suitable for deployment under language inserted by Sen. Ted Stevens (R) of Alaska into the Pentagon's section of the bill.