Budget Fight : Democrats Try a Squeeze Play on Opposition

To hear some Democrats tell it, Rep. Connie Mack (R-Fla.), the grandson and namesake of the Philadelphia baseball legend, had just been caught trying to toss the political equivalent of a spitball.

Mack, a Gulf Coast conservative, was with the Republican team that pitched the controversial Gramm-Rudman budget-balancing law to Congress last fall. He was so involved in the process that House GOP colleagues often credit him with an assist, referring to the final product as the Gramm-Rudman-Mack bill.

Help Bypass Rivalries

Sponsors said the measure would help congressmen bypass regional rivalries and political impotence, which long had kept them from agreeing on sizable cuts in federal spending. But, with the first round of $11.7 billion in automatic across-the-board trims set for March 1, Mack last week proposed changes that would soften the cuts in programs for retirees, immigration control, drug smuggling enforcement and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration --all of special interest to Floridians.

“This is the most exquisite example of squirm I’ve ever seen on Gramm-Rudman,” sniffed Rep. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), who serves with Mack on the House Budget Committee.

Schumer and other Democrats hope more Republicans will be wriggling soon as they get caught in a trap between the fiscal constraints of Gramm-Rudman and President Reagan’s defense-heavy fiscal 1987 budget plans that cut deeply into a vast array of social welfare programs.

Congress is just beginning to digest the proposals served up by Reagan earlier this month when he unveiled his spending plan, which totals nearly $1 trillion. But Democrats, who control the House, wasted little time in trying to turn the statistics and balance sheets to their political advantage, sending the budget panel on the road last week to Tallahassee and four other cities for a hastily arranged series of hearings on the budget designed to put the squeeze on Republicans.

Stacked Against Reagan

The sessions were top-heavy with local and state officials, senior citizens and social welfare advocates who almost universally complained about the distress Reagan’s proposed domestic cutbacks might cause. Democrats clearly think that highlighting disaffection with the cuts will maximize pressure on Republicans either to publicly defend or to reject the President’s priorities.

“This is the policy of their leader,” said Boston Mayor Raymond Flynn, a Democrat, after testifying at one of the sessions in Lowell, Mass. “You can’t sit in the middle of the road on this one. The middle of the road is yellow lines and dead dogs.”

Implementation of the Gramm-Rudman law, which in its initial phases would require deficits to be slashed from more than $200 billion in fiscal 1986 to $144 billion next year, continues on track despite a recent ruling from a three-judge panel striking down a key enforcement provision. The judges stayed the effect of their decision pending an appeal to the Supreme Court later this year.

Republican pollster Robert Teeter recently advised House Republicans against getting caught in detailed debates about budget cutbacks, arguing that such conflicts could undermine growing voter confidence and identification in the party. Seeming to heed that warning, House Republican Leader Robert H. Michel of Illinois attacked the budget panel’s road tour as a wasteful “dog and pony show,” and most Republicans on the committee did not take part in last week’s sessions.

‘Childish Nonsense’

Rep. William H. Gray III (D-Pa.), chairman of the budget panel, bristled at Michel’s charges and the Republican tactics. “We are a political body, who are we kidding?” Gray asked rhetorically. “What is this childish nonsense? It is a tragic commentary on the Republican Party leadership that they are not willing to discuss the problems their party created.”

Although committee Democrats used the hearings to scorch Reagan’s budget, they offered no concrete proposals of their own. Gray, who presided at the sessions, repeatedly pointed out that Democrats were still formulating a response to Reagan’s program and that the development of appropriate counterproposals was one of the purposes of the hearings.

Gray said that the budget panel might consider asking for a freeze on most domestic spending, accompanied by cutbacks on most low-priority items and substantial reductions in Reagan’s request for increases in the Pentagon budget.

Schumer echoed Gray’s partisan taunts. “They’re afraid of the President’s budget,” the Brooklyn Democrat said of Republicans. “Blaming what’s wrong on the hearings is like the hunchback of Notre Dame blaming the mirror for being ugly.”

Feeling a Little Heat

Mack, one of the few GOP committee members who did participate, left little doubt that Republicans were feeling at least a little of the heat as he indicated that his party mates would join in shooting down the most contentious part of Reagan’s budget plan--a hefty increase in proposed outlays for defense.

“I would support the basic thrust of his budget but I don’t think it would pass as is,” conceded Mack, normally a strong Reagan booster. “The President’s request for real growth in the defense department . . . I don’t think you’re going to find support for that in the House or in the Congress as a whole. I’m looking at a number that on the top side would allow only for inflation.”

Despite such concessions, Democrats said they would continue the campaign to isolate Republicans from their President. Gray said he would bring Reagan’s budget to the floor for a vote within a few weeks. Though there is no chance that the Democratic House would approve Reagan’s spending plan, the move would be clearly designed to embarrass Republicans.