House Set to Act on Balanced Budget; Vote Looks Close : Spending: Amendment advocates are confident, but foes say two dozen members are wavering.

Confronting one of the most visible political issues in this election year, the House scheduled votes today on whether to approve a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget that could trigger drastic cutbacks in government spending.

The outcome appeared too close to call Wednesday as lawmakers wound up nine hours of debate on four competing proposals.

Although leading advocates of the amendment, which would require a balanced budget before the turn of the century, exuded confidence that they would have the required two-thirds majority to win, Speaker Thomas S. Foley (D-Wash.) and other opponents said the battle would be decided by about two dozen wavering lawmakers.

The tumultuous daylong debate reflected the frustration felt by the public over a $4-trillion national debt, which is expected to grow by another $400 billion this year and has become a symbol of ineffectual national government.

Experienced legislators, however, said balancing the budget may require painful reductions in such popular programs as Medicare and Social Security cost-of-living allowances to meet a constitutional requirement to match outlays with revenues. By one estimate, it would require $600 billion in spending cuts or tax increases to eliminate the deficit by 1997.

The proposed amendment given the best chance of passage would require that the President submit a balanced budget to Congress each year. It also would provide that total outlays could exceed total receipts only if three-fifths of the members of both houses of Congress approve. The measure would not take effect before 1998 and would have to be ratified by three-fourths of the states.

Ross Perot, the undeclared independent presidential contender, has made the soaring deficit a central issue of his campaign, and President Bush has reacted by personally lobbying 50 members of Congress as part of his last-minute push for passage of a balanced-budget amendment.

Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee, renewed his opposition to such provisions on grounds that they would aggravate the recession.

“Ross Perot--that name reverberates across the nation because we in Congress can’t work together to solve the nation’s critical problems,” said Rep. Tim Roemer (D-Ind.), a supporter of the constitutional change.

Bush--who has never submitted a balanced budget to Congress--telephoned a dozen undecided members while representatives of organized labor and retirement groups struggled equally hard to swing votes against the idea.

In a statement made available to television stations by satellite, Bush said the amendment is the “only way to force the federal government . . . to live within its means.”

Although the President did not mention Perot by name, he alluded to the Texas billionaire: “Let me caution Americans not to be taken in by bold blustering. We can’t wheel and deal the deficit away. There’s no easy answer that we can jot down on a blank sheet of paper to wipe out a deficit of that magnitude.”

Bush and others argued that Washington has failed to control the burgeoning deficit through a series of legislative measures so that only a change in the fundamental law of the land would produce results.

“The train is about to leave the station,” Rep. Richard Ray (D-Ga.) warned, inviting his colleagues to get aboard the balanced-budget locomotive. But some lawmakers tried to put on the brakes, arguing that deficit reduction could be done without changing the nation’s basic law.

Foley and his allies labeled a constitutional amendment as an unworkable gimmick that would not cut a dollar from the deficit but would put the nation in an economic straitjacket. In addition, opponents contended, such an amendment would destroy the separation-of-powers doctrine at the heart of American federalism.

Rep. Charles W. Stenholm (D-Tex.), author of the amendment believed most likely to succeed, argued just as passionately for his plan. “It’ll give us a constitutional reason to find the courage to make the best choices to balance the budget,” he said.

The pressure to do something is so strong, however, that House Majority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) and other key Democrats introduced their own version of a balanced-budget amendment, excluding Social Security benefits and payroll taxes from the calculation.

Republicans introduced two amendments that would curb tax increases or limit federal spending to 19% of the U.S. gross domestic product as a way of eliminating the deficit. Stenholm’s amendment has 278 co-sponsors--159 Republicans and 119 Democrats--and he voiced confidence Wednesday that it would attract at least 290 votes, or exactly two-thirds of the 435-member House.

It would bar spending above the level of federal receipts unless a three-fifths majority of both the House and Senate approve it. Opponents argued that this would give 40% of the members of each chamber veto power over government operations and institutionalize minority rule.