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.