House votes to raise debt limit by $322 billion as talks stall > Social Security surpluses to be no longer counted

WASHINGTON — The House voted Tuesday to let the government go $322 billion deeper into debt next year, while White House and congressional negotiators all but agreed to wait until after the August congressional recess to finalize a deficit-cutting deal.

The extension of the government’s authority to borrow money — which should see it through the next year — came on a 221-205 vote. If adopted by the Senate and signed into law, the provision would allow total federal red ink to swell to $3.44 trillion by Sept. 30, 1991.

Maine’s Democratic representative, Joseph E. Brennan, voted for the extension; Republican Olympia J. Snowe opposed it.

Sweetening the measure was an overwhelmingly popular amendment to stop using the Social Security system’s huge surpluses to make the annual federal deficit look smaller.

That provision — approved 413-15 — would take effect in 1992, when the program that provides benefits to the elderly and disabled is expected to run an $88 billion surplus.

It would not affect next year’s federal deficit, now projected to reach $169 billion, not including the costs of the federal bailout of the savings and loan industry. If not for the expected $76 billion surplus Social Security should amass next year, the 1991 budget shortfall would be $245 billion.

The Social Security measure’s sponsor, Rep. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., said the provision would force lawmakers to make “awful choices, wrenching choices” to confront the government’s mounting deficits.

“I understand that,” he said. “But the choice we’ve always made in the last decade is to do nothing.”

Opponents said the provision would merely complicate the work of budget summit negotators.

House Minority Leader Robert Michel, R-Ill., said it dismisses the budget talks “a sideshow, something to circumvent, a farce.”

There is pressure for Congress to approve the debt limit extension before leaving town for the August recess because the administration says the government would otherwise run out of cash by Aug. 15. But the measure’s fate in the Senate is uncertain because several controversial amendments are lurking there.

One is a proposal by Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, D-N.Y., to cut the 6.2 percent payroll tax paid by employees by 1 percentage point. The measure is popular with many Democrats, but opposed by many congressional leaders because it would increase the deficit.

Should the legislation bog down in the Senate, congressional leaders are prepared to introduce a short-term borrowing measure that would tide the government over until Congress returns in September.

Meanwhile, congressional leaders and White House officials said they were working toward a schedule to complete a budget pact after Congress’ month-long August recess.

Sen. Wyche Fowler, D-Ga., said they were working toward “a mutually agreed-upon timetable.” An administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the two sides could agree by week’s end to a post-recess schedule for votes on a budget pact.

Fiscal 1991 begins Oct. 1.