Lawmakers Ponder Deficit Strategy

Democratic and Republican House members headed out of Washington in different directions this weekend, for separate huddles on strategies for confronting a year of hard choices over deficit reduction.

Although both sessions Saturday were aimed at developing long-term party approaches, talk at both a Democratic retreat at the luxurious Greenbrier resort here and a GOP session at a Baltimore hotel centered instead on a more immediate issue: how to live within the limits of the new Gramm-Rudman balanced-budget law.

President Reagan on Saturday ordered the first $11.7 billion in spending cuts required by the law to be carried out March 1. But the law’s full impact will not be felt until later this year.

Unless the two parties can agree on a fiscal 1987 spending blueprint that would cut the deficit by $38 billion, they will be forced to accept painful across-the-board cuts mandated by the new law on Oct. 1, about a month before the midterm congressional elections.

The law, said California Rep. Leon E. Panetta (D-Monterey), “was carefully drafted to be a crude tool--a club if you will.”

For each party, the political stakes in this year’s budget debate are enormous.

Much of the immediate burden for coming up with a solution rests upon the Republicans, who must play a lead role in bargaining with their own President. They risk losing their fragile Senate majority if they fail to produce a plan before this year’s elections.

At the sparsely attended GOP retreat in a Baltimore hotel, party pollster Robert Teeter warned that Republicans risk frittering away growing voter support if they get bogged down in debates over how to trim individual programs, such as student loans or aid for Amtrak.

Opinion surveys show that the GOP is rapidly shedding its minority status and might be in a position to grab control of the House from the Democrats, Teeter said.

Accent on Economy

As for the fall congressional campaign, Teeter cautioned his audience of 30 to 35 members (out of 182 GOP representatives) to emphasize the lower inflation rate and improved national economy while fuzzing over detailed controversies sure to erupt in the wake of the drive to slash federal deficits.

“We have really turned the direction of the country around in foreign policy and national economic policies,” Teeter said. “If we are split on this whole Gramm-Rudman question, then we’ll see that (lead) deteriorate.”

Despite Teeter’s message, Rep. Steve Gunderson (R-Wis.) warned colleagues that they could be hurt politically if they become too identified with the deep spending cuts required under the Gramm-Rudman formula.

Although the Democrats’ overwhelming House majority appears secure, they also have a stake in forging a solution, political analyst Kevin Phillips told them.

With Democrats already plagued by a reputation as big spenders, “if you don’t participate in the dialogue, you look irresponsible,” Phillips told the group.

However, he and other political analysts speaking Saturday cautioned the Democrats against taking the lead on proposing what many of both parties have said will be an inevitable tax increase.

President Reagan has remained adamantly opposed to a tax hike, and few Democrats wish to repeat their experience of 1984, when Democratic presidential nominee Walter F. Mondale, promising more taxes, lost to Reagan in 49 states.

While the session Saturday underlined differences among Democrats on such issues as spending priorities, the atmosphere at this year’s retreat to the Greenbrier was decidedly more upbeat than last year’s, which was held only a few months after Mondale’s overwhelming defeat.

“Everybody was in a state of near-shock following the election,” House Majority Leader Jim Wright (D-Tex.) said. “Now everybody is more hopeful.”

Karen Tumulty reported from White Sulphur Springs, W.Va., and Bob Secter from Baltimore.