Bill on Deficit Delays Holiday for Congress

A tired and frustrated Congress searched today for a way to adjourn for the year but remained paralyzed by disputes over a $74-billion deficit-reduction bill that President Reagan promised to veto anyway.

Senate leaders argued behind closed doors about whether to accept a House version of the bill, which stripped away a new tax to pay for the “Superfund” toxic waste cleanup program, or to give up and go home for Christmas.

House Majority Leader Jim Wright (D-Tex.) said the House position was in cement--in part because so many members had left that there were no longer enough representatives in town to add up to a quorum.

‘Completed Our Work’

“We have completed our work,” said Wright, standing in for Speaker Thomas P. (Tip) O’Neill Jr. (D-Mass.), who already left. “We’re just waiting for the Senate . . . so we can catch the airplanes home.”

Rep. Bill Frenzel (R-Minn.) said the budget bill was “a dead duck.”

The House, seeking to give the Senate a way to adjourn, convened briefly this afternoon to pass a separate package to simply extend some expiring tax provisions until March 15 next year. The bill passed by a voice vote, and no one questioned whether a quorum was present on the almost-empty House floor.