
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, July 25, 1990                   TAG: 9007250464
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A/4   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short

EARLY BUDGET AGREEMENT NOT LIKELY

Congressional leaders are beginning to lose hope that they and the Bush administration will forge any more than a broad outline of a budget-cutting deal before legislators begin their August recess.

The bargainers are stepping up their efforts to fashion a menu of tax increases and spending cuts totaling about $50 billion for fiscal 1991, which starts Oct. 1

President Bush planned to meet with congressional leaders this morning and negotiators scheduled another session for later in the day.

But increasingly, participants are saying they expect to lay out only the size of the package and the amount of each of its components - including taxes and cuts in defense and domestic programs - by the time Congress begins a month-long recess in early August.

Negotiators say they are not likely to decide precisely what the new taxes and spending slashes will be until September or later. Only then will the House and Senate have a chance to vote on the measure that emerges.

"The problem with putting together a detailed package now is that it's left out there dangling" during the recess, said Sen. James Sasser, D-Tenn., chairman of the Senate Budget Committee.

Some Republicans have offered to ignore the recess and keep working until a package is shaped, said Rep. Bill Archer, R-Texas. But he agreed that what is most likely by the August break is "the broad outlines of a package."

by CNB