Reagan Says House Budget Consists of ‘Phantom Cuts’

President Reagan fired back at the Democratic-controlled House Friday for adopting a budget plan “frankly unacceptable to me and to the American people.”

The military spending freeze approved Thursday by the House, Reagan said, “would undermine our negotiating position at Geneva (in U.S.-Soviet arms talks) and put the defense of our nation at risk.”

The projected overall fiscal 1986 budget savings of $56 billion, he said, largely “would come from what can only be charitably described as phantom cuts.”

A White House spokesman, Robert B. Sims, characterized much of the House savings as “pure fluff.”

Speaking to the National Assn. of Manufacturers in a downtown hotel, Reagan coupled his criticism of the House with an appeal for help in promoting the tax-simplification plan he intends to unveil in a nationally televised speech Tuesday night.

Under his plan, Reagan promised, “most people will be able to fill out their tax forms without paying for help and in a fraction of the time they take now.” He added: “With simplicity will come fairness. The complexity of the current tax code makes it ripe for abuse.”

Earlier, in the Oval Office, Reagan ceremoniously signed a bill repealing a controversial, 5-month-old law requiring daily record-keeping by taxpayers who claim business deductions for automobiles and home computers. Reagan called the requirement “unnecessary” and said that abolishing it “is just part of what I hope will be a larger tax reform later.”

Rep. Buddy Roemer (D-La.), the repeal bill’s sponsor, told Reagan: “I hope the rest of tax reform will be as easy as this, but I somehow doubt it.”

Reagan’s address to the friendly audience of business executives kicked off a weeklong series of presidential speeches aimed at promoting his tax, spending and defense policies.

Ad-libbing a once-favorite line he has not used in years, Reagan said that government’s traditional tax and spending policies remind him of “that old definition of a baby: an enormous appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.”

The $967-billion budget plan approved by the House, like an earlier one adopted by the Republican-controlled Senate, would trim red-ink spending by $56 billion during the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1. But the two plans would achieve the savings in far different ways.

Pentagon Spending

The House, for instance, would freeze Pentagon spending and leave Social Security untouched. But the Senate would permit military spending to rise at the rate of inflation--projected at 4%--and freeze Social Security benefits. These and other differences are scheduled to be resolved by a House-Senate conference committee that will begin meeting after Congress returns from a weeklong Memorial Day recess on June 4.

“The Senate (budget) resolution is historic, a major effort to control government spending,” Reagan said.

Only three weeks ago, however, he denounced the Senate’s proposed defense budget as “irresponsible.” At that time, he was seeking a defense increase of 3% after inflation--a significant drop from the 6% he originally sought.

On his so-far unsuccessful attempt to obtain resumed funding for rebels fighting Nicaragua’s leftist regime, Reagan vowed: “We are going to come back again and again (to Congress) until the House fulfills its responsibilities to protect freedom and our own security.”