U.S. SENATE LEADER CALLS FOR INTEREST RATE CUTS
  Senate Finance Committee Chairman
  Lloyd Bentsen (D-Tex.) called on major industrial countries to
  make a pledge at the coming economic summit in Venice to cut
  interest rates.
      "I think at the summit meeting in Venice what we ought to be
  trying to do is to get the other major industrial nations that
  are involved to bring interest rates down, say, one pct,"
  Bentsen told NBC Television's "Meet the Press."
      Bentsen said coordinated rate cuts could take "billions off
  the debt service of the Latin countries" and help ease
  protectionist pressures in the industrial countries.
      Bentsen also South Korea and Taiwan should be pressured to
  revalue their currencies in relation to the U.S. dollar.
      "You take the Taiwanese, with an enormous capital surplus,
  enormous trade surplus, and we've had very little cooperation
  there," he said.
      Departing Deputy Treasury Secretary Richard Darman told the
  same television network he agreed that the U.S. dollar had not
  fallen enough against the currencies of some countries.
      "I think that more does have to be done there in
  negotiations with the countries involved, the so-called NICs
  (newly industrialized countries)," he said.
      Darman said such negotiations with newly industrialized
  countries were underway privately.
      Bentsen predicted Congress and the White House would agree
  on a fiscal 1988 budget that would raise between 18 and 22
  billion dlrs in new revenues.
      The Texas senator said a series of excise taxes would be
  considered by Congress, including an extension of the telephone
  tax and new levies on liquor and cigarettes.
      Bentsen said he supported an oil import fee, but that it
  would not happen without President Reagan's support.
      Darman called for a "top level negotiation" between the White
  House and Congress on a budget compromise that would include
  asset sales, some excise taxes, cuts in middle-class
  entitlement programs, "a reasonable, steady rate of growth in
  defense" and reform of the budget process.
  

