Liberals in House Create New Budget Woes for Clinton : Congress: Lawmakers threaten revolt over Senate proposals. Plan would trim energy tax, cut Medicare.

Administration officials moved Wednesday to quell an uprising among House liberals over proposed budget changes, as President Clinton acknowledged errors in the handling of his economic agenda and vowed to make a comeback.

Senate Democratic leaders, meanwhile, floated new proposals aimed at ensuring the 50 votes they need to win Senate approval of the budget. The proposals include a new, slimmed-down version of an energy tax and large cuts in Medicare.

“We’re not there yet . . . but we’re getting very close,” said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.).

The proposals prompted a revolt by congressional liberals, particularly in the House, who spent much of the day threatening to vote against the President’s budget if it includes heavy cuts in entitlement programs, such as Medicare. The Congressional Black Caucus voted not to attend a planned meeting with Clinton scheduled for today.

“At the moment, the House and the Senate look a little like two freight trains speeding toward a head-on collision,” said a Democratic House aide. Clinton’s budget plan “is tied to the tracks in between them,” he said.

In an effort to avoid that collision, President Clinton and Leon E. Panetta, director of the Office of Management and Budget, assured restive House members that the Administration had not signed on to any specific Senate proposal and would oppose proposals that would cut too deeply into spending on programs such as Medicare and Medicaid.

Senate leaders should do “whatever it takes to move the process forward,” Panetta said, adding that “we’ll fight it out in the conference”--referring to the joint House-Senate committee that eventually will have to reconcile the two chambers’ versions of the budget.

The current plan under discussion in the Senate would substitute a new, somewhat smaller, energy tax for the “BTU tax” that Clinton had proposed. The new tax, similar to one proposed by Sen. John Breaux (D-La.), would be levied on electricity and on gasoline, diesel and other transportation fuels. It would be somewhat smaller than Clinton’s proposed tax--generating revenues of about $50 billion over five years, rather than $71 billion. But while it would be calculated differently from the BTU tax, it would have largely the same practical impact.

The plan being discussed also would scale back Clinton’s proposed increases in tax credits for the working poor and in food stamps. It would also make new cuts in Medicaid and Medicare.

While steering away from discussing most specifics about the budget, Panetta said flatly that the White House would not accept Medicare cuts of the size being discussed in the Senate--up to $35 billion. Reductions in Medicare “have to be modest,” he said, and they “cannot undercut what we’re trying to do in health care reform.” Spending cuts of $10 billion to $20 billion might be acceptable, he said.

In a speech to business leaders Wednesday, Clinton reverted to the confessional tone he employed when he got in trouble in last year’s presidential campaign, but he vowed to make yet another political comeback.

“I’ve been through a lot of political wars in my lifetime. I’ve on occasion gotten knocked down. Sometimes, I’ve knocked myself down,” the President told the Business Roundtable in a Washington appearance.

“But I always try to come back,” Clinton said.

Clinton’s problems with congressional liberals were particularly noticeable at a meeting Wednesday with members of the Black Caucus. He badly needs the group’s 38 votes to pass his programs in the House.

Clinton’s withdrawal of his nomination of C. Lani Guinier to head the Justice Department’s civil rights division and his changes in position on other liberal policies have prompted black lawmakers to start “a very in-depth reassessment and re-evaluation of our on-going role and relationship with this Administration,” caucus Chairman Kweisi Mfume (D-Md.) said.

Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.), a member of the Black Caucus, and other liberals also expressed anger at Clinton for pressuring them into casting a politically damaging vote in favor of a BTU tax that he later abandoned.

“A lot of people are very angry,” said Rep. Louise M. Slaughter (D-N.Y.). “I remember the President telling us very specifically that if we went out on a limb over the BTU tax, he would be there with us. But now we don’t even know where the limb is.”

Times staff writers John M. Broder and Sam Fulwood III contributed to this story.

How the Tax Proposals Compare

A comparison between President Clinton’s deficit-reduction tax bill as approved by the House and alternatives circulated by top Senate Democrats as described by congressional sources:

* Overall: Five-year savings would be about $500 billion in both.

* Energy tax: The Senate measure would drop the $72-billion tax on the energy content of fuels in the House bill. Instead, about $50 billion would be raised by new taxes on transportation fuels and electricity.

* Other tax increases: The Senate plan would impose new taxes on Social Security benefits and would affect individuals earning $35,000 a year and couples making $42,000. Clinton’s plan aimed the taxes at individuals making $25,000 and couples making $32,000. Also, the House bill’s Jan. 1 increase in top income-tax rate from 31% to 36% would be delayed.

* Medicare and Medicaid: Senate bill would cut $15 billion to $20 billion beyond the $50-billion cut approved by the House.

* Aid to poor: The House boost in food stamp spending would be trimmed. The Senate measure would also phase in an increase in a tax credit for low-income workers, rather than instituting it all at once as the House bill did.

* Tax breaks for business: House-passed tax cuts for companies operating in distressed urban areas would be trimmed.