Worries Arise Over Balanced-Budget Amendment : Legislation: Some GOP House backers fear impact of provision on taxes. They say it would drive away Democrats needed for passage in Senate.

With a vote in the House drawing nearer, the proposed constitutional amendment to require a balanced budget each year is facing divisions among supporters that some fear could threaten its best chance of passage in years.

The proposal, a cornerstone of the Republicans’ “contract with America,” had been widely expected to sail through Congress. But as hearings began this week, some supporters expressed fears that the amendment could be shot down--perhaps permanently--because of some House Republicans’ insistence that it include language requiring that federal tax increases be passed by 60% margins in both houses.

Such language is included in the version of the proposal that was written in the GOP contract and promoted by House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and House Majority Whip Dick Armey (R-Tex.), among others. But nervous supporters worry that the provision would drive away at least a handful of the Democrats needed to give the proposal the two-thirds support required to pass a constitutional amendment in the Senate.

“This is a killer (provision),” said Martha Phillips, executive director of the Concord Coalition, a group pushing for elimination of the deficit. “It may waste the one perfect opportunity to get this amendment.”

An aide to Sen. Paul Simon (D-Ill.), co-sponsor and longtime champion of the proposal, predicted flatly that with the 60% provision “the votes are just not there. There’s no question.”

The differences over the issue again illustrate the fissures that divide more moderate Senate Republicans from House Republicans galvanized by the GOP election sweep in November.

The balanced-budget amendment that will come to a vote in the Senate--which does not include the 60% provision--was developed six years ago. The 44 original co-sponsors, including Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.), gradually cobbled together a bipartisan coalition of supporters.

The amendment received 63 votes in the most recent Senate vote last March. And supporters believed that the midterm elections had brought them the net addition of four votes they needed to reach the required 67-vote total.

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In the House, where the measure is sponsored by Rep. Joe L. Barton (R-Tex.), advocates are hoping that the Republicans’ opening week momentum would bring along the needed number of moderates. “We want the best bill possible and we think they’ll blink,” said one House Republican aide.

But others pointed to recent congressional votes as proof that the support is simply not there because of resistance among moderates to the idea of embedding the 60% requirement on tax votes in the Constitution. They noted that a Senate vote on a balanced-budget amendment with a similar provision in the early 1980s failed by a wide margin.

Compounding the confusion over the issue is the breakneck pace at which the proposal is moving through Congress. At a time when many subcommittees are not yet organized, the House proposal is scheduled to come up for a vote in two weeks.

Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said this week that he will bring up the amendment for a vote one week after the House votes.

Ed Gillespie, a spokesman for Armey, said that the House Republican leadership wants the 60% provision in the amendment. He asserted that House adoption of the provision will not frighten off moderates in the Senate and that differences can then be smoothly resolved in conference committee.

Most analysts had predicted that, if the amendment faces any difficulty, it would come after the proposal is passed by Congress. It then must be approved by legislatures in three-fourths of the states. Top Clinton Administration officials Friday predicted congressional approval of the measure.

Meanwhile, the two parties jockeyed Friday over their conflicting visions of mechanisms for bringing the budget into balance.

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Rep. Charles W. Stenholm (D-Tex.) proposed language in the House Budget Committee that would require Congress to spell out specific budget-cutting plans before adopting any balanced-budget amendment. But the panel defeated it, 21 to 17, in a party-line vote.