Bush Agrees to Cool It : Tones Down Rhetoric on the Budget

Congressional Democrats extracted from President Bush a pledge to tone down political attacks during a two-hour budget session today that failed to narrow crucial differences on curing the federal deficit.

Bush agreed to a temporary political cease-fire after blistering Democrats in recent Republican fund-raising speeches around the country.

“He’ll be very gentle” from now on, White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said.

Bush made no mention of contentious budget issues during a midday speech to a GOP audience in Philadelphia, focusing instead on praise for his selection of David H. Souter for the Supreme Court.

Participants said congressional leaders suggested at today’s Oval Office session that political attacks and counterattacks have hampered efforts to strike a bipartisan budget deal.

“One of the things discussed today was to stop the political debate and start the substantive debate and to try to cut down on the political comment that’s gone on on all sides,” said House Majority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.).

“I think you’re going to see that that will happen,” he added. “I think a lot of that’s out of everybody’s system.”

In political speeches last week in Western states, Bush ridiculed the budget process and suggested that it was now the Democrats’ turn to make concessions.

Fitzwater, speaking to reporters on Air Force One en route to Philadelphia, said Bush and the Democrats were “working in a spirit of harmony and compromise.”

“They agreed this morning at the meeting that they would try to keep the rhetoric under control and really try to make this a productive week of work,” Fitzwater said.

Another White House session with the five top congressional leaders--Gephardt, Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D-Me.), Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.), House Speaker Thomas S. Foley (D-Wash.) and House Minority Leader Bob H. Michel (R-Ill.)--was scheduled for Wednesday morning.

At the same time, a larger group of budget negotiators was meeting on Capitol Hill today in an effort to narrow differences.

But despite the political truce, Bush and Congress seemed no closer to agreeing on a way to close the deficit gap than they were before the President revoked his 1988 “no new taxes” pledge.

The Administration estimates that the deficit for fiscal 1991, which begins Oct. 1, will be nearly $169 billion--more than $100 billion over the $64-billion target set by the Gramm-Rudman budget-balancing law.

Congressional and Administration negotiators are trying to find at least $50 billion in savings to be divided about evenly between spending cuts and new taxes.

Gephardt, who chairs budget-summit negotiations when the President is not in attendance, said that “fundamental differences remain” on taxes, defense spending and cuts in “entitlement” social programs.

He said these differences may frustrate efforts to reach agreement by the August congressional recess, “but we’re going to give it the good old college try.”