Bush Sets Budget Talk With Congress : Senate, House Leaders Invited to Discuss Spending Cuts at White House Meeting

President Bush, back on the road championing his $1.16-trillion spending plan, said today he will personally participate in high-level budget talks next week and share responsibility with Congress for difficult spending cuts.

Bush said he had invited House and Senate leaders to the White House next Tuesday, the day before he leaves on a five-day Far East trip, for a round of talks to speed a budget accord.

“Together, we’ve got to make the budget process work,” Bush told students at Washington University here.

Next week’s meeting appeared designed to blunt Democratic criticism that Bush’s budget enabled him to take credit for proposing expanded social programs while leaving Congress with the unpopular job of finding ways to pay for them through cuts in other areas.

Spending Plan

Budget analysts say the spending plan Bush unveiled last week, while calling for restraints in defense spending but new initiatives in education, housing, child care and environmental cleanup, falls about $9.6 billion to $11 billion short of meeting the deficit targets he set forth.

“I am committed to working closely with my friends on the Hill to help them meet the target date set by the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings law for an April 15 budget resolution,” Bush said.

That law, which requires a balanced budget by 1993, calls for a deficit in the fiscal year that begins next Oct. 1 of no more than $100 billion--down from an estimated $160 billion this year.

Failure of Congress to meet the targets can result in across-the-board cuts in military as well as civilian programs.

Direct involvement by a President this early in the budget process is rare. However, Bush has promised all along to work closely with the Democratic-controlled Congress and engage in a number of bipartisan meetings with leaders.

‘Personal Involvement’

Bush spokesman Stephen Hart said next week’s White House meeting was “the beginning of his (Bush’s) personal involvement with Congress in the budget process.”

The President told his audience that he had called the top five congressional leaders to attend the meeting: House Speaker Jim Wright (D-Tex.), House Republican leader Robert H. Michel of Illinois, House Democratic leader Thomas S. Foley of Washington, Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D-Me.) and Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.).

Bush’s press secretary, Marlin Fitzwater, said the chairmen and ranking minority members of the congressional Budget, Finance and Appropriations committees would also be there.

Today’s address also stressed volunteerism in the private sector--one of Bush’s pet themes.

“My friends, from now on in America any definition of a successful life must include serving others,” he said, “in a child-care center, in the corporate board room, at the Rotary, at Little League, or a tutoring program, and in a church or synagogue.

“We must forge strong partnerships between all levels of government and voluntary organizations, business corporations and individuals--to lend a hand, mend a wound and help the less fortunate,” Bush said.