Reagan Cool to Budget Summit Plea : Has No Plans for Talks With O’Neill, Spokesman Says

A key House Democrat urged President Reagan today to seek an agreement with Speaker of the House Thomas P. (Tip) O’Neill this week on budget-balancing legislation, but the White House said Reagan has no plans to meet with O’Neill on the issue.

“I recommended that he have a summit with the Speaker,” Rep. Dan Rostenkowski (D-Ill.), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, told reporters after a meeting of congressional leaders from both parties with the President.

“I think he’s going to look into it,” Rostenkowski added.

White House spokesman Edward Djerejian, however, said, “The President has no plans at this time for such a summit.”

Budget Deficit Bills

A congressional conference committee is considering different House and Senate versions of a bill designed to phase out the federal budget deficit over five years. Attached to the bill is a measure to extend the present federal debt limit, which will otherwise expire Thursday.

Djerejian quoted Reagan as telling the congressional leaders: “This country cannot be allowed to default on its financial obligations for the first time in history. That would be unthinkable.”

He said the President also told the group that he supports the Senate version of the budget-balancing bill but added that “deficit reduction must be broad-based and not a wholesale attack on defense.”

Senate Democratic leader Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia, however, said he told the President that he “is in for a big surprise if he thinks that national defense would not be cut rather much” if the deficit reduction measure becomes law.

Process Explained

House Republican leader Robert H. Michel of Illinois said, “What Danny was talking about was taking the group of conferees that have been appointed and breaking from that group, breaking it down into a much smaller working group of both houses, both parties, and with some White House input and see how quickly we could come to some resolution of it.”

Asked how Reagan responded to the suggestion, Michel said: “Well, it’s really up to us. It’s in our court.”

Senate GOP leader Bob Dole of Kansas also said, “It was suggested there ought to be a summit meeting here with the President and the leadership before he leaves for the other summit.”

“I think that’s up to the Speaker and the President,” Michel said. “We’re certainly prepared on the Senate side to sit down and try to work out something.”