Reagan to Visit Capitol Hill to Press for Tax Bill Action

President Reagan warned Saturday that failure to break the “parliamentary impasse” that has stalled the tax reform bill will be “a defeat for all Americans” and made hasty plans to visit Capitol Hill Monday to make his case for the bill at a meeting with the House Republican Conference.

In the second successive weekly radio talk in which he has pressed for tax reform action, Reagan called on the House for bipartisan action to get the bill back on the rails this week. Steering around the fact that the measure was sidetracked last Wednesday on a 223-202 procedural vote that found only 14 Republicans supporting a move to bring the bill to the House floor for a vote, he couched his plea as “a personal request” to the entire House.

“If, together, Republicans and Democrats would agree to a formula for considering this vote, I believe that there will be sufficient bipartisan support for tax reform to pass,” he said. “This is one time politics must be put aside on both sides of the aisle.

“There are ways to permit this much-needed reform to go forward. There are ample excuses for not going forward. There will be no justification if it does not.”

The White House announced Saturday that Reagan intends to meet with House Republicans Monday afternoon after his return from a memorial service at Ft. Campbell, Ky., for the 248 members of the 101st Airborne Division killed Thursday in a jet transport crash at Gander, Newfoundland.

The House Ways and Means Committee’s version of the tax bill would shift more of the tax burden from individuals to corporations than Reagan originally proposed and would cut tax rates less than the Administration had recommended. But the President has embraced it as his only hope of gaining any of the tax changes he had championed.

The President’s goal will be to round up at least the 50 GOP votes for the Ways and Means bill that House Speaker Thomas P. (Tip) O’Neill Jr. has said is the minimum that must be nailed down before the Democratic leadership will try once more to bring the bill to the House floor. Under the legislative situation that now prevails, House rules will make it impossible to bring any version of the tax bill up for consideration in this waning legislative session before Tuesday.

A congressional Democrat who asked not to be identified said that a recheck on Saturday showed that 36 Republicans had been lined up to support a motion to bring the bill to the floor--one vote more than was tallied Thursday. Meanwhile, he said, there are indications that there may be as many as 15 defections on the Democratic side.

After declaring that Congress was “on the edge of a breakthrough that can bring personal income tax rates down to the lowest level in over 50 years,” Reagan emphasized his own desire to “improve our unfair and complicated tax code.” Republicans had blocked the pending bill last week because it was the product of the Democratic-controlled Ways and Means Committee rather than a GOP alternative.

Avoids Role of GOP

Although the President failed to note that he had been let down by his own party in the House, the regular Democratic response to his weekly broadcast, delivered by Rep. Robert T. Matsui of Sacramento, made the point.

“The entire Republican leadership in the House of Representatives voted not to let tax reform be considered on the floor of the House this week,” Matsui said. “I think it’s a sad commentary to see so many Republican members of Congress deserting their own President. They’ve deserted Ronald Reagan and, to be honest, they’ve deserted the middle-income workers of America who would benefit the most from tax reform.”

In referring to reports that the President is pressing GOP congressmen to go along with the Ways and Means bill so that the tax reform issue can be put before the Republican-run Senate for possible amendments that will make it more acceptable to the GOP, Matsui called on his listeners to “ask your congressman to let tax reform come up for a vote.”