Deficits Likely to Remain Above $180 Million, Budget Unit Says : Office Questions Projections by Administration

Federal deficits are likely to remain above $180 billion through the end of this decade, even if Congress adopts all the spending cuts sought by President Reagan, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said today.

In a review of Reagan’s $974-billion budget for fiscal 1986, the CBO disputed the Administration’s contention that adoption of the budget would cause the deficit to decline gradually to $82 billion by 1990.

Instead, the deficit would drop from its current level of just more than $200 billion to about $186 billion and “remain at about (that) level through the period,” CBO Director Rudolph Penner told the Senate Appropriations Committee.

The CBO report said that without any congressional action to reduce the deficit, federal red-ink spending will grow to $303 billion by 1990.

Different Outlook

In the first complete congressional analysis of Reagan’s latest budget proposals, the CBO said the Administration’s projections of declining deficits after 1986 are based on brighter economic conditions than those foreseen by congressional economists.

Administration projections also assume lower inflation rates and more rapid rates of growth in the gross national product throughout the decade than those foreseen by congressional analysts.

In the House, meanwhile, Budget Director David A. Stockman rejected Democrats’ suggestions that the Administration is using “fake” figures to support its budget projections.

He also denied that his outspoken attacks on certain programs such as farm subsidies and military pensions might cost him his job.

“I plan to be here. . . . I know (defending budget cuts) is a tough problem but I think I have something to contribute and I believe they know that downtown,” he told the House Budget Committee.

‘Numbers ... Cooked’

Stockman defended the Reagan budget against attacks by Democrats on the House Budget Committee who charged that its figures are deliberately distorted to cloak a $30-billion boost in defense spending above 1985 levels.

“I think the numbers in your budget are cooked. They remind me of Alice in Wonderland. It’s not real. It’s fake. We’re duping the American people,” said Rep. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.).

Schumer said that the Administration is claiming a $9-billion defense savings in the budget, but that this figure is not a real reduction but a theoretical cut from the budget compromise reached last year by Reagan and Senate Republicans.

“I think you’re over-interpreting a number of things,” Stockman responded.

The budget director told committee members, “We’re having a phony debate here,” when Rep. William H. Gray III (D-Pa.), the panel chairman, asked him whether the Administration is really serious about reducing the deficit.