Conferees View Price Supports, Medicare

Striving for a budget breakthrough, congressional and White House negotiators Friday plowed through a long list of federal programs, looking for savings to produce a major deficit reduction package.

They moved into specific and detailed bargaining, but a settlement remained elusive.

“We have a mile and a half to go and it’s all uphill,” said Rep. Silvio O. Conte (R-Mass.).

A wide variety of possible spending cuts was examined but no commitments were made by the Reagan Administration or the Democratic congressional leadership. Among the programs under scrutiny were farm price supports and Medicare.

Deep Differences Remain

The overall goal is to find approximately $11 billion in spending cuts to go with approximately $12 billion in new taxes. However, deep philosophical differences remain, with the White House and congressional Republicans emphasizing spending cuts and the Democrats interested in tax increases.

Earlier in the day, the 17 negotiators divided into small, informal groups to discuss spending and taxes separately. They gathered again in the afternoon as a group to concentrate on spending issues.

“We’re still in business,” said Sen. Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.) after the negotiations ended for the day. “Everyone is still working. We’re operating off some kind of modified freeze.” The initial White House suggestion, an across-the-board freeze on spending at fiscal 1987 levels, has been flatly rejected by the Democrats, who do not want a freeze applied to cost-of-living raises for civilian and military workers and do want to expand programs for the poor.

The Democrats are amenable to a variable freeze, which would impose strict spending controls only on a limited number of federal activities.

Weekend Talks Planned

The debate over the extent of a freeze continued, with various participants suggesting different ways to achieve billions of dollars in savings. The negotiators will meet today in an unusual weekend working session.

“We don’t have the package yet, but we’re making progress through various budget functions,” said Sen. J. Bennett Johnston (D-La.). “We’ve got a ways to go yet.”

The talks--behind closed doors in the Lyndon B. Johnson Room of the Capitol near the Senate Chamber--initially were limited to members of Congress and White House officials. Staff experts attended Friday, walking into the meeting carrying thick briefing books and folders.

The general sparring among political antagonists moved into the hard-to-achieve specifics of producing an agreement on budget numbers. Rep. William H. Gray III (D-Pa.) jokingly called it a day of “perspiration, heat and sore muscles.”

Discussing ‘Right Things’

The emphasis on spending reductions pleased the Reagan Administration. “We’re talking about the right things,” said White House Chief of Staff Howard H. Baker Jr. as he left the meeting. The spending cuts and tax increases are to be combined in a package totaling $23 billion for the 1988 fiscal year, which began Oct. 1. The detailed tax program will be considered later, because the White House has dropped President Reagan’s previous insistence that he would veto any tax hikes.

After the stock market’s abrupt collapse, the President said everything is negotiable except Social Security, and the current budget summit with Congress was convened. The negotiators say they want to avoid one-shot savings for fiscal 1988 and achieve lasting spending reductions and revenue increases.

“There is a growing sense of urgency,” Domenici said. “We’re working hard,” said Sen. Lawton Chiles (D-Fla.). “I’m ever optimistic.”

If Congress and the President cannot agree on the budget package by Nov. 20, automatic cuts will be imposed under the federal law that requires a balanced budget by 1993. Those cuts would hit hard at both domestic and military programs, and would demonstrate a failure to act in the face of economic crisis, the negotiators say.