31.   Other virtual retailers are slashing advertising budgets and laying off employees in an effort to stay alive.

32.   Reagan never got a Democratic-controlled Congress to go along with eliminating the Education Department, although he did succeed in severely slashing its budget.

33.   Slashing government budgets in this context has often meant not just higher unemployment but also fewer child vaccination programs or schools.

34.   States also seized the chance to slash hospital budgets.

35.   Suddenly basketball sneakers seem to be on the wrong side of the fashion cycle, and shoe companies are slashing ad budgets.

36.   Squires and current news executives say that one way corporate executives have tried to keep profits up has been to slash newsroom budgets.

37.   That budget has been slashed once in the last year, and it seems certain to be slashed again.

38.   The city slashed its budget and canceled orders for a fire truck and a police cruiser.

39.   The imperative to slash hospital budgets has left many administrators with excruciating choices between closing hospitals and closing outpatient clinics.

40.   The IRS killed the Lockheed Martin contract after Congress slashed its budget as part of the catchall spending bill signed into law last week by President Bill Clinton.