‘Nice Try,’ but Democrats Reject GOP Budget Compromise Offer

WASHINGTON — Democratic House negotiators today rejected as “a nice try” a proposed Republican budget compromise that would split the difference in 1986 defense spending while retaining a Senate-passed freeze on Social Security benefits.

“I don’t think it represents realism,” Rep. William H. Gray III (D-Pa.), the House Budget Committee chairman, said in formally rejecting the offer made on behalf of the GOP-run Senate by Sen. Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.).

With the rejection, Domenici, the Senate Budget Committee chairman, recessed the talks until an unspecified later time so House conferees could develop a counter-offer--probably not until next week.

“This was the absolute best that we could do for the country,” Domenici said of the rejected offer, which would cut $3 billion from the Senate-approved military spending level.

Defeat of the GOP proposal, the first major offer from either side in nearly two weeks of bargaining, prolonged the stalemate between the two chambers over a compromise deficit-reduction plan.

However, Gray said that the offering of the plan by Senate Republicans had at least gotten “some movement going” toward a compromise. “We will come back and offer you a package of our own,” he said.