Votes to Restore $1.2 Billion in Education Funds : Senate Rejects Reagan Request to Cut 40 Programs

The Senate, in its first vote on the fiscal 1987 budget, demonstrated its intent to reject President Reagan’s spending priorities by overwhelmingly turning down his request to terminate more than 40 federal programs.

In another indication that the Republican-led Senate plans to chart an independent course on the budget, it also voted Wednesday to restore education funds previously cut under the Gramm-Rudman budget-balancing law. Moreover, it opted to pay for the increase with higher taxes--despite Reagan’s warning that he would veto a tax hike.

“It’s a great start in the wrong direction,” Senate Budget Committee Chairman Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.) said after the 60-38 vote to add back $1.2 billion in education funds, which would be enough to compensate for earlier cuts and anticipated inflation of about 4%.

‘Break the Bank’

Today, Domenici said, the Senate will have “an opportunity to break the bank” when it considers an amendment to extend the federal revenue-sharing program beyond its scheduled expiration in fiscal 1987, which begins Oct. 1.

Debate on the budget is expected to extend into next week.

A budget package produced last month by the Senate Budget Committee faces uncertain prospects in light of the strong criticism it has received from the White House and many Senate Republicans. Opposition centers on the committee’s proposal to sharply cut Reagan’s defense request and to add about $12 billion in new taxes to the relatively modest revenues that Reagan included in the budget he submitted to Congress earlier this year.

In the end, the Senate hopes to put together a budget plan that would reduce the projected fiscal 1987 deficit by almost $40 billion. That would be enough to avoid the painful automatic spending cuts mandated by the Gramm-Rudman law if Congress fails to chop the deficit to $144 billion.

Symbolic Gesture

The 83-14 vote not to kill the programs Reagan had marked for extinction was largely a symbolic one, indicating that the Senate does not share the President’s view that defense spending should be allowed to grow at the expense of popular social programs.

Edwin L. Dale Jr., a spokesman for the White House budget office, dismissed the vote as “a little innocent game-playing.”

Sen. William L. Armstrong (R-Colo.), one of those who supported Reagan, dismissed the vote as “a sham. . . . People think Congress is populated by some gutless wonders, and I guess I’d have to agree.”

However, Domenici pointed out that the government would save only $4 billion by terminating the programs, which range from loans to stimulate exports to sewer grants.

Hinged on Ideology

The fight over many of the programs has hinged more on political ideology than immediate budget concerns.

Those who sought to eliminate the programs have argued that they have outlived the social needs that brought them into existence. And, while they acknowledge that killing the programs would produce relatively minor savings initially, they say that the long-term savings would be significant.

Those who appealed for the restoration of the education funds pleaded similarly for the Senate to take a long view, rather than concentrating on its immediate budget needs.

“Some federal programs are investments . . . investing in our todays and all of our nation’s tomorrows,” said Sen. Mark Andrews (R-N.D.), who sponsored the amendment.

“We cannot increase the economic level of any until we increase the education of all,” Sen. Ernest F. Hollings (D-S.C.) agreed. And in a pointed reference to Reagan’s demand for an increase in defense spending while curbing federal assistance to education, Hollings added: “The best defense is an educated citizen.” Ironically, Hollings was one of the principal authors of the Gramm-Rudman law, which forced the education cuts he sought to reverse.

Domenici insisted, though, that the funds the Senate would restore would amount to only a minuscule fraction of total education spending, and called it “preposterous” to assume that the move would significantly upgrade the quality of education.