Deficit Talks Open; Progress Is Slow: Parties Withholding Proposals Until They Agree on Scope of...
8peaker Foloy and Sen. Mitchell address reporters after budget discussions as Rop. Richard A. (iopbardt stands at rear.</br></br>The Bush administration opened the White House-congressional budget summit yesterday with a somber portrait of deep automatic budget cuts later this year, but Democrats and Republicans said no solutions to the federal deficit would be offered in the talks until all sides first agreed on the scope of the problem.</br></br>The Democrats, led by House Speaker Thomas S. Foley (Wash,) and Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (Maine), said they would stick with their ÛÏyou-first" approach to the negotiations by insisting that President Bush make the first move in suggesting the components of a deficit-reduction agreement. Foley said ÛÏseveral meetingsÛ would be needed to define the problem and then ÛÏthe next stepÛ would be for the administration to put its proposals on the table. After that, he said, the Republicans would hear from the Democrats.</br></br>.. According to White House and congressional officials. Office of Management and Budget Director Richard G. Darman opened yesterdayÛªs meeting by saying that the projected fiscal 1991 deficit, which was $100 billion in the budget that Bush submitted to Congress in January, has grown to between $128 billion and $140 billion. He said this larger deficit projection did not include money to be spent next year to buy and hold the assets of failed savings and loans.</br></br>When these costs are included, the projected deficit nears $200 billion, more than three times the $64 billion deficit target set by the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings deficit-reduction law, Darman was quoted as saying.