Dole Challenges Democrats to Propose Plan; They Remain Divided : Budget Negotiators Wait for Each Other’s First Move

As the Senate approached a final showdown on the fiscal 1986 budget package, Democrats and Republicans were faced off Tuesday like Old West gunslingers, each tensely waiting for the other to draw.

Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.), who saw major elements of the GOP package shot down in preliminary skirmishing last week, publicly challenged the Democrats to come forward with their own plan: “Before we dismantle our package further, I’d like to see the strength of one of their packages.”

Democrats remained divided over what sort of alternative they should present and expected to offer at least two. But even the engineers of the Democratic plans are saying that they would not mind seeing every option defeated.

Such a move, they hope, would undo the months of bargaining between Senate GOP leaders and the White House that produced the Republican-backed package and compel them to start over again--this time, with Democratic input that could force such options as requiring corporations to pay a minimum tax. President Reagan has said he would veto any tax increase, leaving spending cuts as the only weapon that Republicans can use to reduce the deficit.

Proposal by Chiles

“I don’t think anything will pass,” said Sen. Lawton Chiles of Florida, the Budget Committee’s ranking Democrat and the author of a plan that is expected to be debated today. “But that’s not the biggest thing. The biggest thing to the Democrats is (whether we can) deny the Republicans our vote” on the ultimate package that Republicans are trying to draft.

A defeat of every proposal “would force (Republicans) to bargain with us. That’s the only way we can have any impact,” said a strategist for the Democrats, who hold a 47-vote minority in the Senate.

Although the Democrats have been unable to unify behind a single plan of their own, they nonetheless have proven in earlier votes that they are able to pick off enough Republicans to defeat crucial parts of the GOP plan.

Last week, the Senate rejected a curb on Social Security increases--removing the centerpiece of domestic spending cuts proposed by the Republicans--and rejected any increase in defense spending beyond inflation, rebuking the defense buildup that has ranked at the top of Reagan’s policy agenda.

Final Alternative

Meanwhile, Republicans are busily making private deals with their own members in hopes of resurrecting an overall package that can meet their goal of more than $50 billion in deficit reductions next year. They plan to offer such a plan as a final alternative, after all others have failed.

One GOP source estimated that Republicans now have “46 to 48 solid votes” after having agreed informally to restore some funding for programs that individual Republican members hold dear.

But, in striking these deals, they are abandoning one of the Administration’s chief goals for the fiscal 1986 budget: the abolition of almost 20 federal programs that the White House targeted as unnecessary and wasteful. For example, they reportedly have agreed to cut the Small Business Administration by only $2.5 billion during three years in the final package, rather than following their original plan to kill the agency and reap almost $5 billion in savings for that period.

Debate on the budget, now into its third week, has been arduous. About 11 hours remain of the 50 hours of budget debate that are required by law, and Republicans say they may stretch this time into next week, when Reagan will have returned from Europe and can join their lobbying effort.

Political Cover

Crucial to the Democrats’ strategy is providing options that can achieve more than the $52 billion in deficit reduction outlined in the GOP package. Although these proposals seem certain to fail, they will provide political cover to those who vote for them, allowing them to oppose the Republican package but tell voters that they have taken a strong stand on deficits.

Chiles, along with Sen. Ernest F. Hollings (D-S.C.), will propose a plan today that they contend would balance the budget in five years, in part by raising $72 billion in new taxes during three years. It would freeze defense spending but might lose Democratic votes because it also would freeze for six months increases in Social Security and other government pensions.

Senate Minority Leader Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) will follow that proposal with his own plan, which would leave Social Security untouched. It would raise $60.9 billion in new taxes during three years and cut the deficit by $9.1 billion more than the GOP package, an aide to Byrd said.