Chiles Urges Talks on Spending Cuts and Deficit

The incoming chairman of the Senate Budget Committee urged on Sunday that President Reagan meet with leaders of the Democrat-run 100th Congress to agree on a package of spending cuts and revenue increases to bring the federal deficit down, but Reagan’s budget director spurned the proposal.

Sen. Lawton Chiles (D-Fla.), appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” said: “I think the President can demand of the Congress, and I think the Congress can give to the President, a package that has the spending cuts with any additional revenue all balled up in the same wax.”

But James C. Miller III, director of the Office of Management and Budget, said the President “is not going along with a tax increase and he’s not going along with a big cut in defense. He’s not going to touch Social Security.”

$40 Billion in Cuts

Although some in Congress would like to “have a big strategy meeting and settle this thing once and for all,” Miller said during a Cable News Network interview, “the President is very tough on this issue.”

Miller’s office prepared the record $1.024-trillion federal budget for fiscal 1988 that President Reagan will submit to Congress today.

Miller confirmed reports that the new budget will contain $40 billion in deficit reduction proposals. About $22 billion, he said, will be in spending cuts in a variety of areas, including medical and farm programs. He said the balance will be sought by selling off such assets as Amtrak, the government-owned passenger rail line, and the naval oil reserve, as well as some government loan programs.

“It makes the federal government leaner . . . smaller,” Miller said. “The kinds of revenues that some on the Hill want are tax increases that would make the government larger, because the Congress would find a way of spending the money.”

Gramm-Rudman Target

Miller said he thought Reagan would veto any proposals to increase the $108-billion target figure set for the fiscal 1988 deficit in the Gramm-Rudman deficit-reduction law, and will also “veto things that break the spending targets.”

It appeared probable that the latter forecast will be tested early in the new session, when Congress is expected to pass once again the $18-billion clean water bill which Reagan found too costly last fall, and killed with a pocket veto after adjournment of the 99th Congress.

Appearing on ABC’s “This Week With David Brinkley,” Rep. Jim Wright (D-Tex.), the incoming Speaker of the House, said he stood ready to seek repassage of the water bill, to be followed if necessary by final enactment over another presidential veto.

On the same program, the House minority leader, Rep. Robert H. Michel (R-Ill.), agreed that there was “no question about its being passed,” but said he felt it was “a question of the amount of money,” indicating that Reagan might be ready to compromise on the amount.

Wright also restated his determination to bring a trade bill before the new Congress in an effort to turn the tide of imports.

Pay Boost for Top Officials

In other interviews on the Brinkley show, incoming Senate Majority Leader Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) and incoming Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) agreed that the Senate should vote on a recommendation to boost the pay of about 2,500 top-bracket federal officials.

Dole saw a “no-win situation” in the proposal by a special commission that the pay of Cabinet officers go to $160,000 a year, while federal judges would be increased to $130,000 and members of Congress, who now draw $72,000, plus allowances, to $135,000.

“Most people believe we’re overpaid in any event,” Dole said as he conceded that “we’re going to have to vote one way or another on the pay raise.”

Byrd, saying he had voted on pay raises before and saw no reason not to do so again, agreed that there would be “an up or down vote in the Senate.”