Reagan May Compromise With Democrats on Raising Revenues

President Reagan, trying to stir opposition to a $1-trillion budget passed by Congress, prepared Sunday for another round of attacks on the spending plan this week, but there were indications he may make concessions.

White House Budget Chief James C. Miller III said Reagan is willing to compromise with Democrats in Congress to raise new federal revenues next year if they back his plan to reform the budget process.

“If the Democrats want to insist that the President say whatever is agreed to is a tax increase, then they’d better just forget it because he’s not going to do that,” Miller said in an interview with Reuters news service at Beaver Creek, Colo., where he was attending a conference on world economic issues.

Fees on Federal Services

“But there are a lot of revenues other than those the President proposed (in his January budget plan), I think, that we might look seriously at,” he added.

The Reagan budget envisages raising $22 billion in new revenues through the sale of a package of government assets and new fees on certain federal services.

The $1-trillion congressional budget plan requires about $19 billion in additional revenues from unspecified new taxes in the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1.

The President has repeatedly vowed to veto any tax increase voted by Congress for the 1988 fiscal year, arguing that cutting domestic spending is a better way to reduce the huge federal deficit.

Reagan Seeks Reform

Before agreeing to a revenue package, the President would insist on reform of the budget process, Miller said. “We’d like to have a budget process that gives us a contract, so that if the President agrees to something, he can depend on its coming through.”

Miller appeared to be signaling that the President might consider some sort of tax increase, but he refused to say which new revenue sources might be acceptable to the President.

He cautioned Congress about the political repercussions of certain moves, such as raising excise taxes on beer, cigarettes or telephone service, or raising corporate or personal income tax rates.

After returning from the economic summit in Venice earlier this month, Reagan revived an earlier unsuccessful campaign for budget reform, calling for a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget and the line-item veto, the power to block individual items in congressional spending bills.

He is scheduled on Friday to unveil his “Economic Bill of Rights,” a plan to halt the nation’s red ink and suggest ways to maintain growth, in a speech at the Jefferson Memorial.