Lawmakers Continue Search for Compromise on Budget

Congressional and White House negotiators resumed their search for compromise over new taxes on the rich and cuts in Medicare benefits today, hoping to end their budget stalemate by week’s end.

A weekend of dickering at the Capitol left bargainers ready to boost gasoline taxes by at least a nickel a gallon. Negotiators also seemed closer together on proposals for Medicare cuts and taxing the wealthy.

The meetings also featured a well-timed walkout by an unusually talkative White House Chief of Staff John H. Sununu. But this morning, Administration Budget Director Richard G. Darman returned to the deficit-reduction talks on Capitol Hill.

At the White House, presidential spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said today that Sununu and Darman left Sunday’s session to return to the White House to brief President Bush upon his return from a weekend at Camp David, Md.

He said Sununu’s hasty departure did not signify White House pessimism or a new impasse.

“The M&M; problem still remains,” House Budget Committee Chairman Leon Panetta (D-Carmel Valley) said today, referring to disagreements over taxing millionaires and cutting Medicare.

“It’s a very difficult negotiation,” Rep. Dan Rostenkowski (D-Ill.), chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, said as talks among congressional leaders ended late Sunday. “Our problem is trying to put something together that passes both houses.”