Dole Pushes Vote on Deficit-Cutting Plan

Despite President Reagan’s hearty endorsement of a plan that could, if carried out, force a balanced federal budget by fiscal 1991, the momentum behind the proposal sputtered in the Senate on Friday.

But Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.), determined to press the issue, announced that the Senate would meet in a rare weekend session and force a vote Sunday to prevent a threatened filibuster. Such a move would require a 60-vote majority and would be a major test of sentiment behind the bill.

“We’re on the one-inch line, and somebody wants to call time out,” Dole complained as opponents tried to delay a vote.

Called Hastily Conceived

Critics portrayed the proposal, designed as an amendment to a measure raising the federal debt ceiling to more than $2 trillion, as a hastily conceived, little-understood plan that could have dramatic consequences for almost every federal program.

The plan would automatically cut federal spending in each of the next five years if Congress fails to produce budgets that meet a series of declining deficit targets, and it would balance the budget by fiscal 1991.

The cuts would be made in domestic and military programs, and only Social Security would be allowed to continue to grow automatically with inflation. The plan would not interfere with existing government contracts.

However, included in the proposal are some significant escape clauses: It could be suspended in times of recession or war, and Congress could nullify the procedure by passing new legislation.

Although the idea of automatic cuts appealed to many of those who have decried Congress’ inability to force fiscal discipline on itself, even Dole conceded that he did not know how the plan would affect individual programs. “I vote on a lot of things I don’t know the answers on,” he said.

Reagan Praises Plan

Reagan, in a White House speech before a bipartisan gathering of congressmen, called the proposal “a historic agreement to bring federal spending under control and at long last bring the United States a balanced budget.”

“This legislation will impose the discipline we now lack by locking us into a spending reduction plan,” he said.

But critics saw it as a dangerous and hasty move to usurp Congress’ constitutional powers to set national spending priorities. Sen. J. Bennett Johnston (D-La.) said that the plan amounted to “nothing less, in my judgment, than legislative Armageddon.”

Others suggested that it was merely a political gesture to soothe growing public anger over earlier congressional inability to confront the difficult options--sharper spending cuts or new taxes--that could bring the deficit under control.

“All the power is here right now to do what needs to be done,” said Sen. Lowell P. Weicker Jr. (R-Conn.), who called the measure “a legislative substitute for the guts, which we don’t have, to do what needs to be done.”

Democrats Offer Plan

Nonetheless, Democratic leaders apparently were intimidated enough by the political force behind the plan, sponsored by Republican Sens. Phil Gramm of Texas and Warren B. Rudman of New Hampshire, that they felt compelled to offer their own alternative, combining spending cuts with a corporate minimum tax.

If Congress does not pass the debt-limit bill, to which Dole hopes to append the deficit-reduction measure, by Monday, the government’s cash will be drained and it will be unable to borrow money to continue normal operations.

The budget package passed by Congress after prolonged wrangling claims to cut the deficit by $55.5 billion this fiscal year--a result widely seen as inadequate at a time when federal deficits are running at more than $200 billion a year.