99th Congress Convenes Amid Talk of Cutting Federal Deficit : Social Security Considered for Possible Trimming

Amid traditional pomp and circumstance, the 99th Congress convened at noon today with leaders of both chambers vowing an all-out effort to trim the nation’s $200-billion federal deficit.

Some lawmakers suggested that even Social Security benefits may be cut.

“We’re all pretty much on the same wavelength,” said the Senate’s new majority leader, Robert J. Dole of Kansas. “We want to trim the deficit. We want to get out front. We want to tell the President not to pull us. We want to go.”

President Reagan’s budget director, David Stockman, met with the entire GOP membership of the Senate minutes before the Senate was gaveled to order by Vice President George Bush at 12:03 p.m.

Senators said Stockman offered a gloomy picture of the deficit situation.

“There are still a lot of decisions being made, a lot of them tentative,” Stockman told reporters after the session. He said that budget cuts in the range of $45 billion are envisioned for next year.

One Senate leader, Majority Whip Alan K. Simpson (R-Wyo.), said the only way that meaningful spending reductions can be made is through cuts in all programs--including Social Security.

Thus far the Administration has indicated a desire to exempt Social Security benefits from budget cuts, but Simpson said, “COLAs (the annual cost-of-living adjustments) are going to have to be dealt with in a cold, hard way. . . . We’re going to all have to jump off the cliff several times.”

Plea From O’Neill

Meanwhile, House Speaker Thomas P. (Tip) O’Neill Jr. (D-Mass.) called on colleagues to join in a bipartisan effort with the White House to “get our fiscal house in order.”

A key House Democrat predicted that Reagan’s second legislative honeymoon will be a short one.

“I think the honeymoon is going to be over by February,” said Rep. William H. Gray III (D-Pa.), expected to be named later this week as chairman of the House Budget Committee.

The panel will be a key battleground in the fight over ways to cut the nation’s $200-billion deficit, a problem that tops the agenda of both chambers.

“You already see Republican members of the House and Senate backing away from his budget proposals at 1,000 miles per hour. And you see total indecision in the White House,” Gray said.

Neither the Senate nor the House is expected to engage in serious work until Jan. 22--the day after Reagan is ceremonially sworn in for a second term.

First order of business today for the 435-member House was election of a Speaker for the next two years--a race that O’Neill, the incumbent for the last eight years, has wrapped up.

The return of Congress today also marked the first day on the job for Dole as the Senate’s new majority leader.

Major skirmishes are anticipated in the 99th Congress over the budget as well as over Reagan’s program for the MX missile and his support of anti-government forces in Nicaragua.