Treasury chief indicates cautious favor of tax cut

Treasury Secretary G. William Miller, in an interview on ABC's "Issues and Answers" program Sunday, indicated cautious acceptance of a congressional tax cut to go into effect in 1981 but decried any weakening of the administration's budget-balancing drive, Monitor correspondent Richard L. Strout reports. Mr. Miller referred to the recent 10-percent-a-year, across-the-board tax cut proposal of Ronald Reagan as a "Barnum & Bailey" aproach.

He appeared to be trying to apply the breaks to a political stampede for tax cuts. He forecast that inflation would be down to a "single digit" by the end of the year but added that unemployment, now around 8 percent, will probably go higher. The "rate of enconomic contraction has declined," Mr. Miller said, citing more hopeful signs in the housing and automobiles industries.