Panel Backs Brady as Treasury Secretary

The Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday approved the nomination of Wall Street investment banker Nicholas F. Brady to be secretary of the Treasury during the Reagan Administration’s final four months.

The vote, which was unanimous, clears the way for the full Senate to act on the nomination Friday, in time for Brady to attend an international meeting of finance ministers in Berlin next week.

Brady, 58, who served briefly as a Republican senator from New Jersey in 1982, replaces James A. Baker III, who resigned to become the campaign chief for GOP presidential nominee George Bush. Brady is expected to continue in the Treasury post if Bush wins the November election.

Earlier this year, Brady headed a blue-ribbon commission that investigated last October’s big stock market crash. He is now co-chairman of Dillon Read & Co., a New York investment firm.

Skirts Social Security Issue

In testimony before the Finance Committee on Tuesday, Brady skirted thorny questions about whether he would recommend using money from the Social Security trust fund to help finance new federal programs, saying any such measure would require thorough study. He also said he believes that the government can reduce the budget deficit without raising taxes.

“I see no reason at this point in time why taxes have to be raised,” he told committee members. He said the size of the federal budget deficit in relation to the economy’s output has been shrinking steadily in recent months.

“We can grow our way out of” the deficit, Brady said.

The secretary-designate expressed optimism that the nation’s trade deficit will shrink significantly in coming months. “I think we are on the right course . . . on the right track,” he said.

Sounding a conciliatory note, Brady pledged to work closely with Democrats to solve the budget problem. “No matter who wins this election,” he said, “let’s see if we can come up with new ways” to address economic problems.

Promises Suggestions

Brady said the Treasury Department is working on some new approaches to the nation’s economic problems and pledged that “by the time the turn of the year comes, the Treasury will have some suggestions of its own,” but he declined to hint what these might involve.

Brady repeatedly dismissed suggestions by some Democrats on the panel that the wave of foreign investment under way in the United States might be damaging to American interests. He reminded senators that American firms have invested heavily overseas in previous years.

He also played down suggestions that it might take $30 billion or more for the government to bail out ailing savings and loan associations insured by the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corp.

“I’m a little worried that there’s a game going on that will try to make everybody come up with a higher figure,” he said. The “FSLIC can’t do any more than it’s doing now, anyway, so putting more money into it wouldn’t help,” he said.