President Asks Support on Tax Bill to Thwart ‘Special Interests’

President Reagan, warning that unnamed “special interests are launching their last-ditch offensive” to block final approval of tax revision, called on citizens Saturday to make their support known to Congress.

Reminding his audience the bill is designed to reduce income taxes for 80% of families and eliminate them for 6 million poor people, Reagan said in his weekly radio address that it will add enough to consumer purchasing power to stimulate “2 to 3 million” new jobs in the next decade.

Enough Incentives

He also said the bill includes enough incentives for industry to make U.S. businesses more competitive in world markets.

‘Looking at Reality’

As for revenue-augmenting parts of the bill, Reagan said: “We’re taking the shelter out of tax shelters. No longer will there be fancy schemes and fast angles that produce nothing but tax breaks. Lawyers, accountants and businessmen will spend more time looking at the reality of supply and demand and less time exploring the never-never land of the tax code. They’ll be looking for investments that create real products, real income and real jobs.”

Exulting in the bill’s progress to the brink of final action, Reagan recalled that “Washington pundits” had said “there was no way a simple and fair tax bill could survive the beating it would get as it ran the gauntlet of Washington lobbyists and insiders.”

But he warned that “special interests are launching their last-ditch offensive. You’re going to be hearing a lot from them in the next few days.”

The President commended Rep. Dan Rostenkowski (D-Ill.) and Sen. Bob Packwood (R-Ore.), the leaders who have guided the bill to the brink of action--scheduled to start this week in the House and later in the month in the Senate. The current congressional session is scheduled to adjourn Oct. 3.

300 Amendments

But Reagan offered no comment on more than 300 amendments worth about $10.6 billion in tax breaks for special interests that Senate and House conferees added to the bill before the final version was reported for action late Thursday. Under congressional rules, both chambers must vote on the bill as it has been reported unless it is returned to the conference committee for revisions.

Last week’s conference amendments, known as “transition rules,” are a standard fixture of major tax bills. They are officially designed to deal with hardship cases by helping affected organizations make the transition to the new tax system. As has been the case in the past, many of the beneficiaries are firms and institutions in the states and districts of members expected to support the bill.

An 886-page report explaining the measure was released Saturday by the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee, which conducted the conference that drafted the measure. The report was signed by 11 Democratic conferees and five Republicans. Not voting, for a variety of reasons, were four Republicans--Sens. William V. Roth Jr. of Delaware and John C. Danforth of Missouri and Reps. Bill Archer of Texas and Philip M. Crane of Illinois

These abstentions by nearly a quarter of the 21 conferees suggested that vote margins may be close on final roll calls. With upward of 200 votes generally required to win a roll call in the 435-member House, Democratic leaders estimated last week that they could count on about 100 members from each party to support the tax bill.