Clinton Backs Off Call for Balanced-Budget Deadline : Spending: President retreats from pledge to offer plan that would erase deficit in 10 years. Move reassures some allies.

President Clinton said Tuesday that he is not committed to eliminating the federal deficit by a specific date, backtracking from a 4-day-old pledge that had confused aides and upset some congressional allies.

Clinton, who declared Friday that he would offer a “counter-budget” to erase the deficit within 10 years, returned to the Administration’s line that it is more important to safeguard essential goals--including education spending--than to specify a date for a balanced federal budget.

“I believe in a balanced budget,” he told reporters at the White House. “But I also know we’ve got to invest in the people of this country if we’re going to raise their incomes.”

In comments to radio reporters in New Hampshire, Clinton had promised to offer a “counter-budget” once Republicans had reconciled their spending plans. “I think it can clearly be done in less than 10 years,” he said. “I think we can get there by a date certain.”

Asked whether Clinton had simply strayed from the reservation in his comments, a White House aide said merely: “Now he’s back. He’s clarified it today.”

Aides insisted, in any case, that Clinton had meant he would negotiate with the GOP only if they met his three conditions: to drop heavy tax cuts, to restore education and training spending and to impose cuts in the growth of Medicare only with a broader revision of the health care system.

On Tuesday, Clinton sidestepped whether he had ruled out offering the Republicans a counterproposal to balance the budget within 10 years. But Administration aides said there is much to recommend a 10-year phaseout of the deficit--leaving the impression that Clinton had simply tipped his hand prematurely in New Hampshire and that the White House-GOP debate now is between a seven-year and a 10-year approach.

Mike McCurry, the White House press secretary, said there are “dramatic differences” between the way seven-year and 10-year periods compress budgets and affect Americans who receive federal benefits. He added that Clinton had not removed the notion of a 10-year phaseout from the table but rather “very clearly has said that he thinks you can probably do it and get there in 10 years.”

McCurry said Clinton’s “counter-budget” could take the form of a comprehensive budget proposal or might mean narrower spending plans.

Clinton’s retreat gratified some liberal congressional Democrats who had been urging him to bear down in his attacks on the Republicans’ budget, rather than looking for common ground at this early stage in the budget cycle. “I think some people were just confused by all of it,” said one House aide.

But conservative Democrats were more harsh. “I’m ashamed to be a Democrat today,” said Rep. Mike Parker (D-Miss.), who speculated that Clinton’s aides had belatedly reeled him in from a policy blunder.

“It’s typical of the White House,” lamented Rep. W.J. (Billy) Tauzin (D-La.). “The only conclusion you can come to is that they’re not interested in having the budget balanced.”

Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole quipped that he was “very surprised [to learn that] the President has a secret plan to balance the budget.”

“It seems to me it’s a little late after all the attacks on Republicans, all the efforts to scare senior citizens” about GOP plans to slow spending for Medicare, the Kansas Republican said.