Clinton, GOP Leaders Fail Again to Agree on Budget : Politics: White House talks end in stalemate as deadline nears on extending government’s ability to borrow.

Hopes for an end to a monthlong impasse over the federal budget faded again Tuesday as President Clinton and congressional leaders came away empty-handed from a rare face-to-face meeting on the issue.

With the federal government’s borrowing capacity fast running out, House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) emerged from a two-hour Oval Office session to acknowledge that a widely anticipated deal to permit several weeks of additional borrowing had not taken shape.

“In all honesty, we didn’t reach any specific agreement,” Gingrich told reporters. Dole said tersely: “We talked.”

While the leaders agreed to future discussions, the lack of progress Wednesday suggested a further hardening of positions by both sides at a time when Congress has already slipped badly behind schedule.

According to accounts of Wednesday’s meeting from White House and Republican sources, Clinton again stated his arguments that federal borrowing should be considered separately from pending 1996 budget legislation, while the GOP leaders argued the opposite.

The federal government authority to borrow money to finance its debt is due to expire in mid-November, threatening to leave the government with no way to repay its debts or meet spending obligations.

The Administration has warned that default would rattle financial markets and raise interest rates. But some Republicans have hoped to use the deadline as a means of forcing Clinton to accept the terms of their budget proposal.

The two sides did agree that a proposal to extend borrowing only to Nov. 29--offered by Senate Budget Committee Chairman Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.)--was a poor idea because of the huge federal Social Security outlays that are scheduled to be made Dec. 1.

“We’re trying to work out a way to work together,” Gingrich said. “We agreed to meet again in the next few days and talk some more.”

Failure to reach agreement on raising the $4.9-trillion debt ceiling came even though some GOP hard-liners have recently been taking a more accommodating position.

For instance, Rep. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), president of the freshman class of Republicans, which includes hard-core opponents of increasing the federal debt, said that he and his cohorts would probably support a temporary increase to give the GOP more negotiating time.

“Most of us will be willing to follow a strategy which will give Speaker Gingrich the greatest bargaining leverage, and that strategy will probably include a temporary increase” in the debt limit, Wicker said.

Meeting with House Democrats earlier in the day, White House Chief of Staff Leon E. Panetta showed little inclination to accept the idea floated by some Republicans to pass a temporary extension of the debt limit until the end of November.

“We want an extension that is going to send a signal to the markets and to the country that we are not playing with the potential of default,” Panetta told reporters.

Panetta and Clinton aide George Stephanopoulos met with the Democrats behind closed doors to discuss budget strategy. “I think Panetta allayed some fears,” said Rep. Bill Richardson (D-N.M.).