Bush Lobbies Congress to Pass Deficit Package : Budget: As the President tries to quell a revolt in his own party, his spokesman concedes that votes are scarce.

WASHINGTON —  President Bush continued his efforts to gain congressional support for a five-year, $500-billion plan to cut government red ink today, but a White House official said the votes to pass it are lacking.

Putting his political prestige on the line as he tries to stop a revolt of conservative Republicans, Bush canceled a two-day party campaign trip to New England to remain in Washington to plead for their support. He warned that Congress risks pushing the United States into a recession if it rejects the plan.

The House will vote on the budget package Thursday, with the Senate to follow later in the day or Friday.

Bush told reporters he did not think a better compromise could be worked out with Congress.

“It is our last, best chance to try to get this federal deficit under control,” Bush said. “A major benefit is, short run, a staving-off of economic catastrophe.”

Bush’s main point to undecided Republicans is that approving the plan would signal world financial markets that the U.S. economy will start growing more rapidly, thus bringing down interest rates.

“This is serious business,” Bush said. “Five hundred billion dollars of reductions over this period of five years is the medicine that a sluggish economy needs to go forward, to have more growth.

“If we get it (the deficit) under control, we send a signal to world markets that is very encouraging.”

Many legislators, however, fear they may be committing political suicide by voting for higher taxes and domestic spending cuts just a month before the Nov. 6 elections.

White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said a preliminary count of votes in the House showed that the plan does not yet have majority support, although it is expected to pass the Senate. Democrats control both houses of Congress, but they are unlikely to pass the plan for Bush without a majority of Republicans on board.

“We don’t have the votes,” Fitzwater told reporters. “We are working very hard.”

The plan won influential backing today when Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan endorsed it as a “credible, enforceable reduction in the budget deficit.”

Greenspan told a congressional committee that the plan would “most certainly” push interest rates lower. (Story, P3.)

The deficit-cutting plan was hammered out by the Administration and congressional leaders in eight months of negotiations.

It includes $134 billion worth of new taxes and $300 billion in spending cuts affecting such popular programs as Medicare and student loans.