President Prefers Sidelines on Deficit, Panel Head Says

The new chairman of the House Budget Committee accused President Reagan on Friday of “walking away from the deficit” and leaving the problem for Congress to solve.

“It appears as if the Gipper has said to the Senate and the House: ‘You all play the game and deal with the muddy issues of deficit reduction. I’m going up to the skybox,’ ” said Budget Committee Chairman William H. Gray III (D-Pa.).

Contending that Reagan seems to have stepped aside as Senate Republicans develop their own version of a fiscal 1986 budget, Gray said: “It’s going to be more difficult to develop a consensus if one of the players walks off the field and says: ‘I’m going to watch from the sidelines.’ ”

But staying on “the sidelines” could pay off politically for Reagan. By taking the spotlight off his own budget proposal--scheduled to be sent to Capitol Hill on Feb. 4--he may force Congress to take the blame for the painful choices required to make any significant dent in the bulging deficit.

Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Robert J. Dole (R-Kan.), who is leading an independent Senate effort to cut $50 billion from the deficit, also put in a bid Friday to get Reagan “on board.”

Dole’s progress on deficit reduction is being slowed by disagree ments over how much should be cut from the Pentagon budget. Thus far, Reagan has backed Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger’s insistence on a 6.4% increase in defense spending, after inflation.

“I won’t say everything is lost if we don’t get more defense reductions but maybe most of it,” Dole said in a speech to a business group. “If we go off on our own and the President is not on board, then we can’t get anywhere.”

Dole lashed out at Weinberger for trying to sit out deficit-reduction efforts, accusing him of using inflated economic figures to exaggerate Pentagon belt-tightening.

“They’ve been able to survive over there (the Pentagon) without much difficulty,” Dole said in his speech. “I think the rest of the country needs to survive too.

“I’m willing to go after sensitive programs . . . but don’t count on me if Weinberger continues to sit it out,” Dole said. “We’re in real trouble if we can’t get together on defense numbers.”

The first order of business for Gray’s committee will be an extended series of hearings on Reagan’s budget, beginning almost immediately after it reaches Capitol Hill. Gray suggested that those hearings may become a forum for holding Reagan accountable for his own spending priorities.

The White House is expected to recommend eliminating a wide range of programs aimed at middle-income people. “The middle class, if you look at the votes, voted for the President,” Gray said. “It will be very interesting to see what is the response of Middle America, Main Street America, to the priorities that will come to (Congress) officially on Feb. 4.”

However, he added, if Reagan’s budget resembles what was disclosed in “the trial balloons of December,” it probably will be “stillborn and dead on arrival” in Congress.

Facing elections in 1986, the legislators are working under a tighter political timetable than Reagan, and Republicans especially would suffer if the gaping federal deficit throws the economy into another recession. An incumbent President’s party almost always fares poorly in mid-term congressional elections and almost half the Republican Senate majority will be on the ballot in 1986.

“We weren’t elected to rubber-stamp everything the President does,” Dole said. “He’s not going to be running in 1986, but a lot of us are.”

Almost all sides have agreed on a deficit reduction target of about $50 billion, Gray said, but “a target is one thing, and priorities are another.”

Echoing the comments earlier this week of House Speaker Thomas P. (Tip) O’Neill Jr. (D-Mass.), Gray said: “We are going to have to look at all spending programs. Everything is on the table.”

However, he said, there is likely to be “great reluctance in the House” to agree to a proposal by Senate Republicans for a one-year freeze on Social Security cost-of-living increases.

And while there still is significant support in the House for proposals to place an across-the-board freeze on government spending, Gray added: “I don’t know if that support will last once they begin to look at the figures and what it does to the various programs.”