House Recommends Four-Year Tax Cut

The House yesterday adopted a recommendation to provide additional tax cuts totalling $164.5 billion between 1980 and 1983 over the protests of House Democratic leaders and President Carter's objections.

By a 263-135 vote, the House told its tax bill negotiators it favored the long-term tax cut concept contained in a Senate proposal sponsored by Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) and strongly supported by Republicans.

The House vote does not bind the conferees and does not guarantee that this year's final tax cut bill will include the $164.5 billion in future tax cuts.

The Nunn proposal would alter the usual procedure of planning tax cuts one year at a time by committing the Congress to tax cuts for up to four years from now.

Sponsors of the tax cuts intend them to help balance the federal budget, but leading Democrats called the plan "a Rube Goldberg scheme" that would cripple Congress's economic policy-making powers.

Under the Nunn plan, a typical four-member family with a $20,000 annual income would pay $769 less in taxes by 1983. Previously the Senate bill provided only a one-year reduction of $316.

If the House also approves a $250-a-year tuition tax credit proposal, the tax bill will face almost sure veto from the White House. Presidential press secretary Jody Powell said that people making $50,000 or more a year would receive one-fourth of the reductions under the combined bills.

Rep. Barbara Conable (R-N.Y.), the leader of the move to commit Congress to future tax cuts, called it "good fiscal sense and good political sense."