House Democrats Vow Attack on Deficit : Congress: Party leaders, new lawmakers say they will combine their efforts with Clinton’s economic growth proposals.

House Democratic leaders vowed Monday to combine deficit-reduction measures with the economic growth package that President-elect Bill Clinton is expected to make a top priority for the new Congress.

Speaker Thomas S. Foley (D-Wash.) said there will be more emphasis on curbing red-ink spending than the public expects or that Clinton so far has acknowledged is needed as part of his legislative agenda.

“I think you’ll see early action on the deficit,” Foley told reporters before he and other Democratic leaders met with 22 newly elected party members to discuss 1993 priorities.

Foley’s statement was strongly seconded by Rep. Dan Rostenkowski (D-Ill.), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, who will play a key role in fashioning the economic package.

“I wouldn’t want to see us stimulate the economy without doing something about the deficit or you’ll spook the (financial) markets,” Rostenkowski said.

“It might be painful for the American people, who want both jobs and deficit reduction, but they give me the impression that they want shared sacrifice,” he added.

Several Democratic newcomers enthusiastically endorsed the twin emphasis on economic growth and deficit shrinkage.

“We’ve got to re-power the economy, but we’ve got to do it so we won’t increase the deficit,” said Martin Meehan, a newly elected representative from Massachusetts who said he favored a gas tax increase to finance additional road-building and presented his own five-year deficit-cutting plan to voters this fall.

“If you’re paying $300 billion in interest, you won’t be able to do the things we want to do,” he said.

Similar views were expressed by David Mann, a new Democratic lawmaker from Cincinnati who said Congress’ dilemma would be to find a way to encourage job creation without more deficit spending.

“We’ll take a lot of cues on that from Gov. Clinton,” Mann said.

But newcomer Patricia Danner, a Missouri Democrat, said voters who sent her to Washington want “jobs, jobs, jobs” as an absolute priority.

“If we have more jobs, a lot of other things will fall into place,” she said.

Foley said he favored a plan devised by Rep. Leon E. Panetta (D-Carmel Valley) that would impose spending ceilings to be enforced by automatic budget cuts if Congress failed to meet the targets for a phased elimination of the deficit--which approached $300 billion in the last fiscal year.

In part, the Democratic leaders hope to fend off pressure for a constitutional amendment to balance the federal budget--a step that some of the newly elected Democrats endorsed in their campaigns.

A balanced-budget amendment, strongly endorsed by President Bush and nearly all Republicans in Congress, fell just nine votes short of getting the required two-thirds majority in a House vote earlier this year.

Opponents--including the House Democratic leadership--said the amendment would not take effect for six years and was no substitute for making the tough choices on spending priorities that are required to lower the deficit.

Foley said some of Clinton’s advisers have made economic stimulation a top priority, contending it would produce more revenue and reduce outlays for jobless benefits, food stamps and other programs.

“With low economic growth, it’s almost impossible to do deficit reduction, but if we don’t address the (deficit) problem seriously we’ll be eating up our resources,” he said.

On other issues, Rostenkowski said he would await Clinton’s recommendations before deciding whether to revise or scrap the $28-billion tax-and-urban-aid bill passed by Congress but vetoed by Bush after the Nov. 3 election.

The provisions to channel aid to 50 enterprise zones through tax credits and government subsidies, Rostenkowski said, were a “pretty good package” but it was up to the newly elected President to decide its fate.