House Unit OKs Debt Limit Hike : Summit Cited in Action on Temporary Increase

The Democratic-controlled House moved Tuesday to sweep the government’s pressing debt and spending crises under the rug until after next week’s summit meeting, but it was unclear whether the White House and Republican-run Senate would go along.

After citing a wish not to burden President Reagan with domestic money problems on the eve of his meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the House Ways and Means Committee approved on a voice vote a bipartisan measure temporarily increasing the national debt ceiling by $80 billion, thereby extending the government’s borrowing power to Dec. 13.

Spending Authority Action

At the same time, the full House, which is likely to take up the debt measure today, voted 259 to 151 to renew spending authority through Dec. 12 for virtually all government agencies, which are dependent on appropriations bills still working their way through Congress. And, on a voice vote, the Ways and Means Committee approved an extension of the lucrative 16-cent-a-pack cigarette tax through Dec. 14.

The actions painted a clear picture of lawmakers seizing on the summit meeting as a way of avoiding the increasingly unpleasant prospect of dealing with the balanced-budget legislation that had been tying up the money measures.

“The President isn’t in any position to refuse this,” said House Speaker Thomas P. (Tip) O’Neill Jr. (D-Mass.) after the action on the debt ceiling. “. . . We don’t want to be a defaulting nation when he goes to Geneva. We’re leaning backwards to help him.”

But Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.), asked if Republicans in the Senate would follow the House lead and go along with a temporary debt ceiling increase, responded curtly: “I don’t know.”

Such an increase, if passed, would avert a cash crisis expected Friday, when, the Treasury Department has predicted, federal accounts will run dry and government checks will start bouncing.

Hit Limit Last Month

It would allow the government, which hit the current debt ceiling of $1.8 trillion last month, to borrow an additional $80 billion. Ultimately, the Administration hopes to raise the debt ceiling to more than $2 trillion to fund government operations for the rest of the fiscal year.

Also, on Thursday, federal agencies’ spending authority is scheduled to run out and the cigarette tax, projected to raise $4.9 billion over the next three years at the current level, is to revert to 8 cents a pack.

Progress on the debt and spending issues had fallen hostage to a lingering debate over competing Democratic and Republican plans to force annual cuts in the huge federal deficit and to balance the budget within five years.

Senate Republicans, in particular, had opposed attempts to pass a temporary hike in the debt ceiling, seeking to capitalize on the crisis atmosphere created by the situation to pressure Democrats into accepting the GOP balanced-budget measure.

On Tuesday, a White House official, leaving the door open slightly to compromise, stressed in an interview that Reagan would continue his opposition to a temporary debt ceiling increase as long as it appeared that Republicans still “have a chance to get the whole thing” by Thursday.

‘One for the Gipper’

At the same time, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Bob Packwood (R-Ore.) predicted that the chamber would go along with a temporary increase if Reagan asked for one to help him get through the summit meeting.

Packwood said a plea of “win one for the Gipper” would be one that “tugs at Congress.”

The House action followed a sometimes-testy early morning White House meeting between congressional leaders and Reagan, as well as the resumption of negotiations on the overall budget-balancing plans by an unwieldy crowd of 66 House and Senate conferees.

During the White House meeting, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Les Aspin (D-Wis.) warned Reagan that neither the Republican nor Democratic budget-slashing measure would allow the Administration to increase defense spending as much as it wants next year.

Glared at Aspin

When Aspin questioned whether Reagan really understood the implications of the legislation, the President, according to an aide, glared at Aspin and shot back: “Yes, I understand every bit of it.”

The aide described the atmosphere of the meeting as having “a little lightning in the air.”