‘New Revenue’ a $6-Billion Tax Hike, Baker Concedes

Treasury Secretary James A. Baker III conceded today that about $6 billion in “new revenue” proposals in President Reagan’s trillion-dollar budget are tax increases, but he said they do not violate Reagan’s repeated opposition to new general tax increases.

Reagan remains opposed to any move to increase taxes to trim the federal deficit, Baker told the Senate Budget Committee.

Baker also appeared to rule out prospects for a “budget summit” among top White House and congressional budget writers as called for by Senate Democratic leaders.

The proposal for a budget summit “has always been, in the President’s view, the code word for ‘let’s put a tax increase on the table.’ And he’s just not going to do that,” Baker said.

‘Revenues on the Table’

But Sen. Donald W. Riegle (D-Mich.) told Baker, “You folks have put revenues on the table in this document.”

Baker acknowledged that, among about $23 billion in new revenue proposals in Reagan’s fiscal 1988 budget, “there are about $6.1 billion in revenues that I think it’s fair to say probably represent taxes.

“We’re not coming up here as we did in the past, saying it all has to come out of spending,” Baker told the panel.

Baker said, however, that there is a big difference between these proposals and any form of a general tax increase, which he said Reagan still steadfastly opposes.

“While the . . . receipt changes (in the new budget) do represent permanent revenue proposals that have to do with taxes-owed or fees for services, (they) must be distinguished from a general tax increase,” he said.

‘In Form of Tariffs’

Earlier, interviewed on “CBS Morning News,” Baker said some of the revenue increases could in fact be referred to as tax boosts.

“The President here is proposing deficit reduction in this particular budget of $42 billion, $22 billion of that is in the form of receipts, $7 billion of those are in the form of tariffs, if you want to call them that,” Baker said.

“Some of those are in fact, small tax increases. . . . We had $6 billion last year in the form of receipts that some could call taxes.

“The real issue is not whether it’s a tax, but whether or not it reduces the deficit on the receipt side.”