White House Rejects Call for Gas Tax Hike : Bush Administration: The President also is not easing his opposition to Democrats’ formula for raising the minimum wage, an aide says.

The White House today rejected a Republican leader’s call for higher taxes on gasoline and also said President Bush was not easing his opposition to the Democrats’ formula for raising the minimum wage.

“We do not feel that an increase in federal gas taxes is necessary at this time,” said White House press secretary Marlin Fitzwater.

Senate Republican Leader Bob Dole of Kansas said Sunday that although he still supports Bush’s “no new taxes” pledge, he would back a gasoline tax increase to rebuild the U.S. infrastructure--such as roads, bridges and other public facilities.

However, Dole said he would not back a gas tax hike for deficit reduction.

On the minimum wage, Fitzwater said, “We are not changing our position at this point” although he noted that White House Chief of Staff John H. Sununu has been conferring on the issue with House leaders.

House Democrats are casting the minimum wage issue as a poor versus rich matter that, along with his demand for a capital gains tax cut, leaves the President’s allies a bit nervous.

“The issue has been greatly simplified, at least for a great many of us,” said Sen. Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.), referring to a new scaled-back Democratic proposal. “It’s time to change the minimum wage; $4.25 over the next two years (from the current $3.35 an hour) is agreeable to me.”

Domenici is among several Republicans and conservative Democrats who last summer supported Bush’s veto of a proposed increase to $4.55 an hour by 1992 but who do not want to walk the plank again.

“They (the White House) know that things are moving away from them,” said Rep. Timothy J. Penny (D-Minn.), one of 28 House Democrats who supported Bush’s veto. “Everybody wants this to be the last time we have to vote on his bill.”

House Democratic leaders have scheduled a vote Wednesday on a bill to raise the $3.35 wage floor, which has not changed since 1981, by 45 cents on Jan. 1 and by another 45 cents an hour in January, 1991, to $4.25.

Senate Democrats this week also will keep trying to prevent Republicans from attaching a capital gains tax cut to legislation providing a three-year aid package for Poland and Hungary or to a bill raising the ceiling on the federal debt.

“Obviously, capital gains has nothing to do with aid to Poland and Hungary,” Senate Democratic Leader George J. Mitchell of Maine said Sunday on NBC-TV’s “Meet the Press.” “I hope very much that we’ll be able to proceed.”