GOP Senators Balk at Showdown on Budget : Decline Immediate Vote, Fearing $300-Billion Plan Would Be Beaten Despite President’s Plea

The Republican-controlled Senate, despite urging by President Reagan Wednesday night to support a package of budget cuts because the “hour is late, the task is large and the stakes are momentous,” backed away from an immediate vote Thursday because of Republican fears that the plan was likely to go down to defeat.

Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.), telling reporters early in the day that he was “fairly close” to having a majority to pass the plan, kicked off the debate by saying he would try to get a quick vote on the Reagan-backed GOP plan “if I don’t mess it up along the way.”

‘Critical Vote’ Cited

But Dole, when given a chance by the Democrats early in the evening to hold a test vote on the three-year, $300-billion package of spending cuts, balked at the offer, conceding that it was “a critical vote” that “could be one vote one way or the other.”

Another top Republican, Sen. John H. Chafee of Rhode Island, said: “We’re trying to get all the votes lined up.”

Democrats, who initially feared that an early up-or-down vote on the Republican budget compromise might harm their chances of eliminating several politically unpalatable measures--such as a limit on Social Security benefit increases--at first set up a series of roadblocks in hopes of putting off the key test vote.

But then, apparently convinced that the White House compromise with leading Senate Republicans would lose, Minority Leader Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) tried to force a vote on the issue. “I regret we won’t be able to have the showdown tonight,” Byrd said. “I kind of like these O.K. Corral shoot-outs.”

The postponement of the budget showdown by the Republicans, who pushed through the agreement to recess for the night on a party-line 52-44 vote, suggested that Reagan’s nationally televised appeal for the public to flood Congress with messages supporting the deficit-reduction plan had failed to sway many senators in its favor.

The political gamesmanship on both sides of the aisle was designed to yield the early advantage in a budget debate that is expected to go on for at least 10 days.

50 Amendments Planned

Regardless of the result of the initial vote, Democrats and Republicans plan to introduce at least 50 amendments on various features of the budget plan, giving senators a chance to vote against all of its most unpopular features while retaining the opportunity to approve a final compromise that would reverse some of the individual decisions.

Referring to Dole, Byrd pointed out that “if he wins, the ballgame isn’t over. If he loses, the ballgame isn’t over, either.”

As a result, it will be difficult to determine how far the Senate is prepared to cut the deficit until the debate is completed. And even if the Senate can agree on a spending plan, it will still have to run the gantlet of a Democratic-controlled House to have any chance of narrowing the government’s huge budget gap.

$52 Billion in Cuts

The budget package now before the Senate, the product of an agreement between the White House and key Senate Republicans, would trim the federal deficit by an estimated $52 billion in fiscal 1986 below the $227 billion that it is expected to reach if current spending programs continue. By 1988, the deficit would shrink to less than $100 billion if the economy picks up steam again and continues to grow for the next three years.

That goal would be achieved without a tax increase, but it would require eliminating or sharply scaling back dozens of domestic programs. Social Security benefits would grow by 2 percentage points less than the inflation rate over the next three years, although an increase of at least 2% a year would be guaranteed.

At the same time, 17 domestic programs--including Amtrak, rural housing and the Job Corps--would be eliminated. Reagan’s proposed growth in Pentagon spending of 6% on top of inflation of about 4% would be cut in half, but spending on national defense would still increase by $24 billion next year.

‘Only Viable’ Proposal

Republicans conceded that the budget package would harm just about every group in American society. But they insisted, as Sen. William L. Armstrong (R-Colo.) put it, that the sacrifices are necessary “to get our economy back on track” and that it is the “only viable existing proposal that has any chance of passing.”

Dole, who attended a morning press conference sponsored by 234 companies and business trade groups that have lined up in support of the Republican package, said he is willing to compromise further on some features of the plan. But he acknowledged that support for the proposal is so fragile that he could accept only minor adjustments.

“If we start slipping a few dollars out that back door,” Dole warned, some senators who now support the plan “are going to leave by the front door.”