Senate Votes Farm Relief; Eight Republicans Defect : President’s Veto Threat Ignored

The Senate, rejecting charges of “budget busting” and threats of a veto by President Reagan, narrowly approved more relief for debt-strapped farmers today with defecting Republicans tipping the balance.

Senate Republican leader Robert Dole of Kansas, who had delayed the vote for a day to try to pick up votes, and the Administration pulled out all stops in an effort to keep GOP forces in line, but lost on a 54-45 vote.

Eight farm state Republicans joined the minority Democrats in supporting the $100-million measure, while only one fiscally conservative Democrat voted against it.

But Dole said Reagan is likely to have the last word. “I’m convinced this is never going to become law,” he said.

Dole argued the measure to reduce interest on farm loans was a “bailout” of banks he said were already helped by modifications of the Reagan farm debt plan first announced last September.

“Maybe banks are also hanging on by their fingernails,” he conceded, but he said they were not satisfied with modifications and “now want the government and the taxpayers to pay one-half of the remaining costs of their interest costs.”

Sen. Edward Zorinsky (D-Neb.) retorted, “In my state, banks and farmers are in the same boat and I can tell you that boat is sinking fast.”

Earlier, members of Congress planted white crosses near the White House today in a mock funeral to illustrate the plight of debt-ridden farmers, while presidential spokesman Larry Speakes said Reagan will veto farm credit relief legislation containing “budget-busting” amendments.

As Speakes talked to reporters, four senators and four members of Congress, all Democrats, gathered across Pennsylvania Avenue in Lafayette Square for a mock funeral for about 250 farms that “will literally die today, tomorrow and every day,” said Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), organizer of the demonstration.

“If this President thinks he can preside over the death of the family farm, we’re going to let him know it won’t be a quiet funeral,” Harkin added.

Planting of crosses for failed farmers began in Iowa and has spread across the Midwest.

15,000 in Prayer Meeting

In Ames, Iowa, more than 15,000 farmers and state lawmakers jammed Iowa State University’s Hilton Coliseum and joined in prayer, asking God to “open the callous hearts and minds” of Agriculture Secretary John Block and other federal officials, who were booed for failing to end the farm crisis.

Hundreds more farmers spilled outside, where some gleefully pounded nails into a wooden coffin that bore the sign, “Here lies (federal budget director) David Stockman.”

“This feels so good,” said Waseca, Minn., farmer Darlene Kukuczka as she added a nail to the coffin.

A variety of slogans were splashed across protest signs, such as “Parity, not charity,” “Chrysler Bailout--Farmers Sell Out,” “It’s Bedtime for Ronzo” and “Farms, not Arms.”