Top Democrats Seek Votes for Clinton Package

Nervous House Democratic leaders stepped up pressure Wednesday on undecided Democrats to back President Clinton’s $16.3-billion stimulus package without further change as Congress approaches a major test today on the Administration’s economic program.

“We’re making our list and checking it twice,” said one Democratic vote counter amid signs that Speaker Thomas S. Foley (D-Wash.) and his top lieutenants still are trying to round up support with a showdown roll call less than 24 hours away.

“We don’t want to blow this one,” the vote counter said.

House approval appeared certain today for a budget resolution embracing Clinton’s deficit-reduction plan and cutting spending by $63 billion more over five years than the President originally had requested.

But the fate of the stimulus package, which also is to be voted on today, appeared to be in doubt. Foley said that he expects Clinton to telephone wavering lawmakers on behalf of the more controversial package, which has drawn fire from conservative Democrats as well as heated opposition from a nearly unanimous Republican minority.

The Speaker predicted that the President’s plan to spur growth and create jobs would have enough votes to pass, even if some of the 255 Democrats in the House refuse to support Clinton on one of the first key votes of his presidency.

Even so, Rep. Timothy J. Penny (D-Minn.), leader of a group of Democratic deficit-reduction hawks, challenged Foley’s view, saying that the leadership lacks a firm count that would assure victory for the President’s plan.

“We don’t know how many people are going to hold out (against Clinton and the House Democratic leadership) but we know there are more than 40 (undecided),” Penny said Wednesday.

The Speaker’s allies said that they were trying to assess support for an amendment proposed by Rep. Charles W. Stenholm (D-Tex.) that would approve the Clinton package only on condition that another $10 billion of spending cuts occur in the fiscal year starting Oct. 1 and thereafter. The White House opposes Stenholm’s plan.

Leon E. Panetta, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget and former chairman of the House Budget Committee, appeared before a group of 30 conservative Democrats Wednesday to argue for the President’s stimulus package.

Rep. Esteban E. Torres (D-Pico Rivera) said that all 14 Democratic voting members of the Hispanic Caucus had told the President that they would vote for the stimulus package.

Torres recalled that some of the conservative Democrats who have been critical of Clinton’s economic program were in Congress in 1981 and voted for the far-reaching economic program advanced by then-President Ronald Reagan.

“You gave Reagan a chance--why not give our President a chance?” Torres said these Democrats were asked Wednesday by members of the House leadership.

Meantime, the Senate also began debate on a separate budget resolution. Both the House and Senate hope to approve a common spending blueprint before Congress leaves for its Easter recess in two weeks.