House Narrowly Kills Balanced Budget Measure

In a surprisingly close battle, the House Tuesday rejected a proposed balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. But advocates fell only seven votes short of the required two-thirds majority and declared that they intend to try again later this year.

President Bush, who issued a last-minute appeal on behalf of the constitutional change, summoned five top congressional leaders to attend a session at the White House today in a separate effort to spur a bipartisan agreement to reduce the fiscal 1991 deficit, now estimated at $168.8 billion.

“The agenda’s a very simple one--let’s get a solution,” said John H. Sununu, Bush’s chief of staff, in announcing the session. When Bush last met with the same group, he announced that he was abandoning his celebrated “no-new-taxes” campaign pledge in hopes of reaching an agreement on deficit reduction.

The House vote was a moral victory for proponents of a constitutional amendment that would require the President to submit a balanced budget each year and allow deficit spending only if approved by three-fifths majorities in the House and Senate.

The vote was 279 to 150, or seven votes short of the necessary two-thirds majority required for constitutional changes. A total of 169 Republicans and 110 Democrats voted for the amendment; 145 Democrats and five GOP lawmakers voted against it.

The sharp division reflected an increasing concern over the deficit as a potential campaign issue by House members who face reelection this fall.

In 1982, the House rejected a similar constitutional amendment with 46 votes to spare.

Opponents charged that the proposed amendment was an unenforceable gimmick that would do nothing to eliminate red-ink spending, but supporters said that the massive deficits of recent years and a $3-trillion national debt justify a constitutional change.

Under the proposal, the budget-balancing provisions would take effect in 1995, assuming passage by a two-thirds majority of both houses of Congress and ratification by 38 states.

As the House was debating the issue, the White House announced that Bush would sit down today with Speaker Thomas S. Foley (D-Wash.), House Majority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.), Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D-Me.) and the Republican leaders in each chamber--Sen. Bob Dole of Kansas and Rep. Robert H. Michel of Illinois.

Bush’s renewed involvement in the budget talks occurred amid indications that Administration and congressional negotiators are moving closer to politically painful decisions on tax increases and spending cuts in the 2-month-old negotiations.

“The time for game-playing is over,” Bush said, referring to the on-again, off-again bargaining.

White House and congressional leaders have expressed hope that agreement on the outlines of a deficit-cutting package can be reached before lawmakers leave early next month for their August recess.

Richard G. Darman, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, warned Monday that automatic spending cuts of $100 billion would be required if there were no bipartisan deal to trim the deficit.