Reagan Aides Scramble for Votes for Tax Overhaul Bill : Some in GOP Hint at New Attempt Friday

President Reagan’s top aides scrambled on Capitol Hill today, trying to round up enough House Republican votes to pass a Democratic tax overhaul bill and keep Reagan’s top domestic priority alive.

Some GOP members, who banded together Wednesday and surprisingly blocked the measure in the House, hinted today that progress was being made and a new attempt at moving the bill could come by Friday.

House Speaker Thomas P. (Tip) O’Neill Jr., meanwhile, stressed that Democrats who control the House would not make a new attempt unless the President could guarantee he had gathered between 50 and 75 GOP votes for the Democratic bill, which was put together after Reagan insisted that Congress try to rewrite the nation’s tax code.

‘President’s Bill’

“This is a President’s bill,” O’Neill said today. “If the President wants to kill it, that’s his business.”

In an effort to win those votes, Treasury Secretary James A. Baker III and White House Chief of Staff Donald T. Regan huddled with House GOP leaders, but members said no decisions had been reached in the early stages of the talks.

“We’re letting people vent their spleen,” said House GOP leader Robert H. Michel of Illinois.

“It’s a draw right now,” added Rep. John J. Duncan of Tennessee, the top Republican on the Ways and Means Committee.

Rep. Jack Kemp (R-N.Y.) hinted, however, that some progress was being made and suggested Republican votes might be changed if Reagan would promise in writing that he would make a true effort to change the legislation in the Senate.

Procedural Rejection

In the first test of the issue in the full House, lawmakers Wednesday voted 223 to 202 to block the committee’s tax bill. The defeat came on what is called the “rule”--a set of procedural guidelines which govern the way a bill is handled on the floor.

Even though Reagan had lobbied for the Democratic bill, only 14 of the 182 House Republicans voted in favor of the procedures.

Reagan was “disappointed” in the outcome of Wednesday’s vote and in the action by House Republican leaders to kill the rule, White House spokesman Larry Speakes said today.

“The President is just as determined as ever to make sure Congress doesn’t miss this historic opportunity,” Speakes said.

O’Neill on Wednesday said if Reagan did not deliver enough GOP votes, tax reform “will be dead.”