HOUSE OKS 'MAGIC' DEFICIT-CUTTING BILL TAX VOTE EXPECTED TODAY.(Main)

Byline: Combined wire services

The House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved legislation Wednesday that claims to cut the fiscal 1987 deficit by $15 billion, apparently enough to avoid indiscriminate reductions under the Gramm-Rudman law, despite criticism that the reductions amounted to "a magic act."

A large portion of the bill's deficit reduction measures, like those in a companion measure passed last week by the Senate, are based on accounting gimmicks and 1-time windfalls, such as sale of government assets.

Meanwhile, House Republicans opposed to a tax overhaul bill mounted a last- gasp campaign Wednesday to block the legislation, but backers of the measure predicted it would clear the House today by a comfortable margin.

"I think it will get the votes ultimately," said House Speaker Thomas P. O'Neill Jr., D-Mass.

Rep. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., said the budget-cutting bill "has so much smoke and fog in it that I should think we would issue everybody in this House a fog lamp." Rep. Robert …