House Rejects Three Budget Alternatives : Virtually Assures Chamber’s Approval of Plan Adopted Last Week

The Democratic-controlled House, launching its debate on the fiscal 1986 budget, overwhelmingly rejected three budget alternatives Wednesday and virtually assured passage today of a plan passed last week by the House Budget Committee.

Thus, the lines will be drawn for a showdown with the Republican-led Senate over how to slash $56 billion from the fiscal 1986 deficit, now expected to approach $230 billion.

Although the House plan and the package approved by the Senate several weeks ago are aimed at achieving roughly equal amounts of savings, they set dramatically different spending priorities.

Politically Explosive

The House plan rejects the Senate’s politically explosive proposal to deny Social Security recipients next year’s cost-of-living allowances. Overall, the Budget Committee package makes only two-thirds of the amount of domestic spending cuts as the Senate plan.

Instead, the Budget Committee would focus spending restraint on the Pentagon, allowing no growth in its budget. The Senate would let Pentagon spending expand enough to keep up with inflation, projected at about 4%.

Those two programs--the defense buildup, a prime goal for President Reagan, and Social Security, a popular campaign issue for Democrats--are likely to be the hottest issues when House and Senate negotiators meet in a conference committee after Congress returns from its Memorial Day recess.

O’Neill Is Adamant

House Speaker Thomas P. (Tip) O’Neill Jr. (D-Mass.) conceded Wednesday that even some in his own party believe Social Security should not be spared in an overall effort to bring deficits under control.

“An awful lot of young members (in both parties) seem to think that fairness means going after Social Security,” O’Neill said. But he vowed: “I will be adamant against that.”

The Senate, meanwhile, is likely to be equally insistent on the defense budget. Senate Budget Committee Chairman Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.) has said he would prefer no budget agreement at all to one that cuts defense spending below the Senate-approved level, which Reagan has said is his bottom line.

Alternatives Rejected

It was clear Wednesday that House Democrats approve of the Budget Committee spending plan, however. Among the alternatives rejected by the House:

--A plan by conservative Republicans, led by California Rep. William E. Dannemeyer (R-Fullerton), that was similar to the Senate-passed package except that it would allow Social Security benefits to rise 2% in each of the next three years. It failed 382 to 39 and picked up no Democratic votes.

--A proposal by moderate Republicans, which failed 335 to 87, that included no growth in defense spending but left the issue of Social Security increases unresolved.

--A budget by the Congressional Black Caucus that called for cuts in defense spending in 1987 and 1988 and would have required corporations to pay at least a 25% minimum tax. It failed 361 to 54, with Budget Committee Chairman William H. Gray III (D-Pa.), who is black, voting present.