Dole Not Hopeful of Senate Budget Pact

As time runs out on its debate over the fiscal 1987 budget, the Senate’s prospects for reaching an agreement are “just not very good,” Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) said Wednesday.

He suggested that the Senate, which has less than 10 hours remaining of its scheduled 50 hours of consideration of a budget proposal produced last month by the Senate Budget Committee, might end up having to scrap the panel’s plan and “start over.”

Dole made his comments after the Senate voted, 55 to 42, to resurrect the Work Incentive Program, which spends about $211 million a year to help welfare recipients find and keep jobs. He complained that the vote, which would increase spending at a time when many senators are calling for further domestic cuts, amounted to “budget meltdown.”

Senate Deeply Divided

The program was one of only a handful that the Budget Committee had voted to abolish. By comparison, President Reagan had asked that 44 programs be eliminated.

The Senate remained deeply divided over how to reach its goal of cutting almost $40 billion from next year’s projected deficit. Reagan and many Republicans strongly oppose the committee plan, which they say includes unacceptably high levels of domestic spending and taxes and not enough defense spending.

Key senators have met behind the scenes for almost two weeks, but their negotiations have failed to produce a compromise.

In continued voting on minor changes to the committee plan, the Senate overwhelmingly approved an amendment by Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.) to divert $74 million that would be earmarked for congressional newsletters to research on AIDS and Alzheimer’s disease.

Adopted on 95-2 Vote

“Many of these newsletters during the years have come to resemble campaign reelection pieces,” Wilson complained during debate on the amendment, which was adopted on a 95-2 vote.

Wilson’s fellow Californian, Democratic Sen. Alan Cranston, who is up for reelection this year, outspent anyone else on Capitol Hill on mailings to constituents, according to the most recent figures. Cranston spent more than $1.6 million between August and October last year--more than twice as much as any other senator.

However, Wilson spokesman Bill Livingstone insisted that the amendment was not aimed at Cranston and said Wilson’s concern was raised instead when he discovered that one of his own newsletters had cost taxpayers almost $1 million in 1985. Wilson has also introduced legislation to abolish congressional newsletters.

Cranston Backs Measure

Because Cranston and Wilson have more constituents than any other senators, it costs them more to communicate with their voters through the mail.

Cranston voted for the amendment, saying that AIDS is “one of the most serious health threats we have ever known in this country of ours.”

Because the amendment was attached to the budget resolution, which is merely a broad spending outline, it would not guarantee that funds will be taken from or channeled into the specific programs that Wilson cited.