Bush Plans Daily Sessions on Deficit : Budget: He is eager to strike a deal before Congress’ August vacation. Top lawmakers are skeptical it can be done that quickly.

Amid signs of a possible thaw in the frozen budget talks, the White House announced Monday that President Bush will meet daily this week for “hard bargaining” with top congressional leaders over the federal deficit.

“This is a period of very intense negotiations,” White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said, “so they felt the leadership should get together and do some hard bargaining to see if we can’t get it resolved.”

The White House is particularly eager to obtain an agreement before early August, when Congress leaves for a month-long vacation, but top lawmakers remain skeptical that a final deal can be struck that quickly.

Congressional aides said that differences between the Democrats, who control Congress, and the White House have narrowed considerably but that major disputes remain over taxes, defense spending and reform of the budget process.

Meanwhile, congressional Republicans expressed growing frustration over having been excluded from the numerous behind-the-scenes talks that have been under way recently between Administration officials and top Democratic lawmakers.

House Republicans already have lined up against any increase in taxes, largely undercutting their ability to influence the details of a budget agreement. Now, however, more-cooperative Senate Republicans are also becoming upset over the White House tactics.

Bush plans to meet with the five top congressional leaders--three Democrats and two Republicans--for breakfast today before flying to Philadelphia and New York for political speeches.

The morning sessions are expected to continue for the rest of the week, with a larger group of budget negotiators meeting in the afternoon to work on fleshing out details of a deficit-reduction agreement.

“We are going to . . . exchange ideas and approaches,” House Speaker Thomas S. Foley (D-Wash.) said Monday. “We do not intend to make agreements outside the summit group.”

Bargainers already have agreed informally on the broad outlines of a deficit-reduction plan that would cut roughly $50 billion from next year’s estimated budget gap of $169 billion.

According to aides, lawmakers expect to extract roughly $10 billion to $11 billion in savings from benefit programs such as Medicare, pensions and farm subsidies; $10 billion to $12 billion from the Pentagon; $1 billion to $3 billion from nondefense programs, and $20 billion to $27 billion from higher taxes and user fees.

But the budget group remains mired in disputes over which measures it should recommend to reach those targets--for example, whether to rely mainly on Medicare savings to reduce the cost of benefits or to go after the politically sacrosanct Social Security program.

Another key difference between the White House and Democrats centers on taxes. Bush Administration officials have been insisting on a cut in capital gains taxes, but so far have been unwilling to accept higher income tax rates for upper brackets, which the Democrats are demanding as a quid pro quo.

One reason that both sides are pressing for an agreement is to avoid cuts of more than $100 billion that otherwise would be mandated by the Gramm-Rudman deficit-reduction law, if it is not changed.

Moreover, Congress will have to consider raising the ceiling on the national debt before it leaves for its summer vacation in early August--a deadline that could prod negotiators into making enough progress to ward off crippling amendments to the debt-limit bill.

Besides Foley, other lawmakers scheduled to attend the White House breakfast sessions are House Majority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.), House Minority Leader Robert H. Michel (R-Ill.), Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D-Me.) and Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.). Joining Bush from the Administration will be White House Chief of Staff John H. Sununu; Richard G. Darman, director of the Office of Management and Budget, and Treasury Secretary Nicholas F. Brady.