Reagan Rips Democrat Plan for $64.3-Billion Tax Hike

President Reagan lashed out Saturday against a $1-trillion spending plan proposed by congressional Democrats, saying the budget “is as bad as they come.”

In his weekly radio address to the nation, broadcast from his retreat at Camp David, Md., Reagan said the American people need an “Economic Bill of Rights” to protect them against excessive taxes, government spending and overregulation.

Among other things, the budget would raise taxes by $64.3 billion over three years, allow a modest increase in defense spending and increase spending on an array of domestic programs.

Pest-Control Alarm

Noting the existence in the Washington area of cicadas, insects that surface only once every 17 years, Reagan sent a political pest-control alarm about the Democratic budget proposal for fiscal 1988, which begins Oct. 1.

“Almost everyone can agree, things will be much more pleasant when the cicadas go back underground,” he said. “Well, I’m afraid . . . the big spenders are hatching out again and threatening to overrun Congress.

“For a while they seem to have gone underground,” the President said, noting the attention Congress gave to curbing heavy federal deficits when it passed the Gramm-Rudman law calling for mandatory spending restraints.

‘Tax-and-Spend Crew Back’

“Now, however, the tax-and-spend crew is back,” he said, “and they seem to have lost all embarrassment about taking your money on a spending spree.”

‘Time for Action’

Rep. Butler Derrick of South Carolina, giving the Democratic Party’s response to Reagan’s message, said that “with this budget the Congress is saying the time for talk is over, and the time for action is here. We cannot afford to keep fiddling while the fire of the federal deficit is raging out of control.”

“But the Congress cannot put out that fire by itself,” Derrick said. “I hope the President will make my day by abandoning the confrontational strategy urged on him by his political advisers and, instead, will sit down with congressional leaders to cooperate on a budget that the American public needs and deserves.”