White House to Lead Way in Budget Cuts : Economy: Gore says steps to trim spending will be announced this week. But final decisions on Clinton’s overall plan are still pending, officials say.

Vice President Al Gore said Sunday that the Clinton Administration will announce a number of steps this week to trim government spending, starting with the White House budget.

Gore and other top officials said that no final decisions have been made on the President’s overall economic plan, which will be announced in a speech to Congress Feb. 17. The plan will include budget cuts, tax increases and new spending to stimulate the economy and create jobs, officials have said.

But Gore said on ABC’s “This Week with David Brinkley” that some initial actions will be announced this week “to eliminate wasteful and unnecessary spending.”

“And we’re going to take on the sacrifice ourselves first of all,” Gore said, referring to the White House staff. “You’re going to see some announcements next week that will be unmistakably clear that we have been wrestling with the guts of these very difficult decisions.”

He did not specify the nature of the cuts but Clinton promised during the campaign to reduce the White House staff by 25% and reduce the perquisites of office. Some workers in the White House correspondence office already have been let go and Clinton has reduced the number of senior officials eligible for door-to-door limousine service.

Administration aides suggested Sunday that additional White House staff reductions would be announced as early as Tuesday.

Labor Secretary Robert B. Reich said that he and others in the Administration are agonizing over how to boost job growth and invest in the nation’s future while reducing the federal budget deficit. There have been numerous hints that the Administration planned to cut entitlement benefits and raise taxes, inevitably increasing the middle-class tax burden.

Clinton is going through the budget himself “in excruciating detail” and has vowed not to hurt the poor and struggling middle-income Americans, Reich said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

“The President is asking detailed questions,” Reich said. “Who’s this going to hurt if we cut it? Who’s going to gain? Is this something we need? And he takes his pen and he crosses it out. This is a budget-cutting President. . . . But he’s doing it very carefully.”

Reich and other officials have said that Clinton’s economic stimulus program would be in the range of $10 billion to $30 billion, to be spent on a variety of infrastructure and growth-related projects designed to create jobs and improve the nation’s future competitiveness.

But congressional Republicans said that signs of strong economic recovery make such a program an unnecessary luxury now and urged Clinton to drop it as a first step toward reducing the deficit.

The Republicans, in a letter signed by Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) and other senior members, said: “We fail to see how any short-term stimulus package of $10 billion to $30 billion can have any significant impact on our economy that is now experiencing solid recovery.

“The economy already is experiencing a $320-billion stimulus in the form of our annual deficit and such a package may simply add to that debt load,” the letter said. But Commerce Secretary Ronald H. Brown said that the economy, although improving, is not creating enough new jobs. Unemployment has remained above 7% despite more than a year of steady economic expansion.

“There are still layoffs, still plant closings,” Brown said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “We’re pleased that some of the statistics coming in are looking favorable. And that’s why a modest stimulus package is in order.”