Dole Urges Compromise on Spending : Warns Reagan to Prepare for Cuts in Defense Requests

Senate Majority Leader Robert J. Dole, noting widespread dissatisfaction with President Reagan’s budget in Congress, today said the Administration should be prepared to negotiate a compromise spending plan with House and Senate leaders.

With the GOP-controlled Senate Budget Committee apparently ready to recommend deep cuts in Reagan’s request for the military spending, Dole, a Kansas Republican, told reporters: “I think it’s finally going to have to come to that . . . try to get together a consensus and offer a substitute” proposal to reduce federal deficits.

White House spokesman Larry Speakes said Reagan “stands squarely behind his budget” for fiscal 1986, which includes a proposed $30-billion increase in defense spending.

Sen. Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.), chairman of the Budget Committee, broke with Reagan on the issue Monday when he proposed slashing the Administration’s military buildup by $92 billion over three years.

Called Too Generous

As the committee prepared to start a debate on defense spending, Domenici said he believed that a majority of the panel would find even his defense proposal too generous.

Other senators said they sensed considerable support for holding the rise in defense spending to the pace of inflation.

Domenici’s plan would give the Pentagon increases of 3% over inflation for each of the next three years. Reagan asked for a 5.9% after-inflation increase in 1986, 8.2% in 1987 and 8.8% in 1988.

Dole, who has been unable to unite Republicans around an alternative to Reagan’s budget, said he hopes that the Domenici committee will complete its work by the end of the week and send a budget plan to the Senate floor without recommendation.

“It’s the only option you’ve got, to get it out there. You don’t have any agreement on it, you don’t have the votes for it,” he said.

Compromise Is Next Step

The next step, Dole said, would be to have Reagan, Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger and congressional leaders work out a compromise plan.

Before it tackled specific spending programs, the committee resolved an initial partisan squabble today by voting 12 to 10 to accept an optimistic Administration economic forecast as the basis for its work on the budget.

Democrats had argued for adopting a grimmer set of projections produced by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.