New Worry Isn’t Just Tax and Spend--It’s Tax and Tax : Government: Anxiety is growing over whether the new President can win approval of two major levies to support economic and health care plans.

With Congress finally ready to focus on the details of the Clinton Administration’s long-term economic agenda, anxiety in Washington is rising over a troubling political question: Can President Clinton win approval for two successive rounds of major tax increases?

Clinton’s economic plan is dominated by one of the largest tax increases in American history, including higher energy and Social Security taxes on the middle class and higher tax rates for the wealthy and corporations. The tax package, which is being taken up by the House Ways and Means Committee this week, would raise a staggering $273 billion to finance deficit reduction and Clinton’s ambitious new domestic spending initiatives.

But coming right behind that proposal is Clinton’s health care reform package, which may cost as much as $90 billion a year more and seems certain to require another round of big tax increases on the middle class and the wealthy. Those new taxes will mainly be needed to finance health coverage for the nation’s 37 million uninsured.

Thus, Clinton seems in danger of overloading the political system. And that would increase the likelihood the program that emerges from Congress will look very different from the one Clinton announced in February.

“There clearly is enormous anxiety on (Capitol) Hill on the size of the taxes under discussion,” said Clint Stretch, a tax policy expert in the Washington office of Deloitte & Touche, a major accounting firm. “It’s like running a train that is too long on a railroad and that makes it jump off its tracks.”

Health care lobbyist Michael Bromberg said, “If there are a whole bunch of taxes (proposed to finance health care), that’s crazy; you can’t do that as a 1-2 punch.”

Although a value-added tax--a form of a national sales tax--has been ruled out by the Administration as a way to finance health care, a wide range of other controversial tax proposals are still under consideration.

These include higher payroll taxes; stiff increases in alcohol, tobacco and firearms levies; a possible sales tax on the services of hospitals and doctors; new taxes on the value of health benefits for middle-class workers and limits on corporate deductions for employee medical care.

Analysts now warn that, if Clinton announces his health care package in the midst of the congressional debate over his economic program this spring, he easily could frighten off support for the new levies in his deficit reduction plan.

As a result, congressional leaders, outside tax experts and even some members of his Administration are urging Clinton to delay his health care program until August or September, after Congress has finished work on the Administration’s budget plan.

“If they asked my advice, I’d say they should delay discussion of health care financing until after they get the budget through,” said Robert McIntyre, director of Citizens for Tax Justice, a Washington tax research group.

“By the time you get to Round 2, people may start to ask, ‘When does this stop?’ ” said Guy Peters, a tax expert at the University of Pittsburgh.

The threat that the health care program could derail congressional action on Clinton’s economic plan was behind last week’s controversial comments by Leon E. Panetta, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget.

Panetta told reporters that Clinton’s agenda was in deep trouble on Capitol Hill and urged the President to focus on his economic program. Administration officials said Panetta’s outburst reflected growing frustration among Clinton’s economic and budget advisers over the mounting costs of the health care program and the likelihood that the Administration will have to pursue broad-based taxes to pay for it.

While those concerns loom, even the first round of taxes in the economic program are making many in Congress nervous. The House Ways and Means Committee, which began public discussion of the bill Tuesday, is not likely to cast votes on the tax bill until next week. But already, Clinton’s proposal for an investment tax credit for business purchases of new equipment appears to be dead.

The tax credit had little support among businesses, largely because it was temporary. Corporate lobbyists also persuaded congressional leaders to give up on it in exchange for reducing Clinton’s proposed increase in the corporate income tax rate. Clinton’s plan called for an increase from 34% to 36%. A deal now seems to be in the works to raise the rate only to 35%.

Panetta indicated Tuesday that the White House knows the tax credit is dead. He said the Administration might be willing to drop it and offer in its place other special tax breaks more preferable to businesses.

Clinton’s broad-based energy tax appears to be in trouble, tax experts said, especially in the Senate. Conservative Democrats from energy-producing states may propose to replace the levy, which imposes higher taxes on most forms of energy consumption, with a simple increase in the federal gasoline tax.

Clinton would strongly oppose a shift to a gas tax but it is preferred by many energy-related businesses. Yet to match the $20 billion a year in revenues that the broad-based energy tax would raise, gasoline taxes would have to be raised 20 cents per gallon. An increase of that size would be much more visible to consumers, who may not detect all of the costs of the broader energy tax in their monthly budgets.

Another tax proposal that may face problems in Congress is the Administration plan to increase taxation on Social Security benefits for more affluent recipients. For individuals making more than $25,000 and couples earning more than $32,000, the proportion of benefits subject to taxes would be raised from 50% to 85%. Opponents, aided by senior citizen groups, may fight to reduce that increase or to raise the income threshold at which it hits recipients.

Other provisions in the Clinton tax bill also have prompted lobbyists to seek support on Capitol Hill for changes. For instance, although Clinton’s proposal to raise the top income tax rate to 39.6% on wealthy individuals has not caused much controversy, small businesses that could be hit by the same rates are fighting back.

And other critics have warned that Clinton’s plan to raise the top personal rate while keeping the capital gains tax rate at 28% is likely to lead to creation of new tax shelters.

Clinton’s biggest problems with his tax bill are likely to come in the Senate, where Republicans have far more influence over the tax-writing process.

The House is likely to push through a tax bill that follows the broad outlines of Clinton’s proposal, but that scenario is unlikely to be followed when the measure gets to the Senate Finance Committee, where Democrats hold a slim edge of 11 to 9. Two of those Democratic votes are conservatives John B. Breaux (D-La.) and David L. Boren (D-Okla.), who could vote with the GOP minority on some issues.

It is no surprise that Republicans seem even more comfortable opposing Clinton’s tax bill than they did in attacking his stimulus package. “It is a quagmire for America,” Rep. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.), a member of the Ways and Means panel, said Tuesday. “Think about it. It’s frightening.”