GOP Leaders Call for More Spending Cuts

Republican congressional leaders, escalating their criticism of President Clinton’s economic proposals, offered some alternatives Sunday to what they said are too few cuts in government spending programs.

Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) predicted that GOP members of Congress would seek to reverse the ratio in the President’s plan, where reductions in spending are less than revenues from new taxes.

He suggested a freeze in government spending “across the board except for low-income groups” as one alternative to the deficit-reduction package that Clinton proposed in his address to Congress last week.

“I think the problem with this package is it is tax-heavy,” Dole said on ABC-TV’s “This Week With David Brinkley.” He added: “And it seems to me you’ve got about a $270-billion tax increase and $80 billion in net spending reduction that all comes out of defense.”

Dole said that “you’re going to see Republicans offering additional spending reductions” to reverse what he described as the Administration’s proposal for “$3 in new taxes for every dollar in spending restraint.”

House Minority Whip Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), hitting the same theme, said that “you could shrink the middle management of the federal government” and achieve broader spending cuts than those proposed by Clinton.

Gingrich said on NBC-TV’s “Meet the Press” that he favors reductions in other government agencies besides the Defense Department.

Gingrich said the government should be “dramatically overhauled (and) downsized” before members of Congress are asked to approve tax increases. He and Dole both predicted that Clinton’s program has scant chance of congressional approval without a number of modifications.

The President in his speech to Congress last Wednesday proposed one of the largest tax increases in American history, including higher income taxes on upper-income taxpayers and corporations and higher levies on gasoline and other fuels, which would hit all income levels.

Another influential Republican, Sen. Trent Lott of Mississippi, called Sunday for “across-the-board” cuts in government spending, including caps to control the growth rate of mandatory programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps and Head Start.

Speaking on CNN’s “Newsmaker Sunday,” Lott, a member of the Senate Budget Committee, said: “We could freeze across the board with a few cuts below (the freeze level), including in defense, that would produce billions of dollars, and make it apply to everything and everybody except Social Security or other trust funds.”

Lott said these proposals are part of a list he has prepared that would save $216 billion in government spending. He declined to make the list public. Without such far-reaching reductions, he said, the President’s program “is the same old tax-and-spend.”

Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen and Budget Director Leon E. Panetta defended the Administration’s economic package as a credible and balanced plan to reduce the federal deficit and stimulate the economy.

Bentsen, appearing on ABC, said: “What you’ve seen is the American people overwhelmingly supporting it. . . . The American people think it’s time to really cut this deficit, and what we’re speaking of is a very credible move in that direction.”

Bentsen said the Administration’s plan is also aimed at creating more jobs because “even though the (economic) indices are improving and that’s encouraging, we’re not seeing the job creation there as we’ve seen in past recoveries from recession.”

He raised the possibility that the proposed income tax increases might not be retroactive to Jan. 1, as Clinton suggested in his speech. “We’re not sure on that one,” Bentsen said, explaining that it would be difficult for Congress to complete work on the tax proposals before July and that he wanted to be receptive to ideas from all lawmakers.

Panetta said on NBC that early indications of public approval of the plan may help ease its passage through Congress.

“I’m very confident that there’s a tremendous amount of support among the public in this country, and that’ll be reflected in the Congress,” he said.

Panetta said that while he expects Congress to modify the package, he doubts that any member will offer major spending cuts that have a chance of passage.

“There’ll be some changes,” he said. “But I think the fundamental principles that are built into the economic plan are going to hold together and pass the Congress.”

He echoed the President’s call to lawmakers to propose specific additional spending cuts if they believe the Administration’s proposals do not go far enough.

Panetta said he welcomes specific suggestions but “no gimmicks and no caps and no across-the-board cuts. What we want are specific recommendations similar to what we’ve put in this (package).”