WASHINGTON INSIGHT

CHECKOFF CHANGE: In the recently approved budget bill, lawmakers quietly increased the $1 income tax checkoff for presidential campaigns to $3 per individual. If Congress had failed to act, matching funds would not have been available for the 1996 primaries--and the general election candidates would have received only partial funding, the Federal Election Commission said. . . . Last year the fund paid $55.2 million apiece to Bill Clinton and George Bush.