Senate Approves Pentagon Budget : $295-Billion Package Adopted 86 to 3 Is $25 Billion Less Than Reagan Asked

The Republican-controlled Senate, meeting in an unusual weekend session, Saturday night approved a $295-billion defense spending bill--$25 billion less than President Reagan requested--for fiscal 1987.

Adopted by an 86-3 vote after six days and nights of debate, the massive Senate spending package exceeds by $3 billion the level that Congress previously set for next year’s Pentagon spending .

The only opposition votes were cast by Sens. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), John Melcher (D-Mont.) and William Proxmire (D-Wis.).

House Trims Expected

This week, the Democratic-controlled House is expected to approve its own version, trimming defense spending even further. The differences are likely to be reconciled by a House-Senate conference committee.

The Senate also voted 47 to 40 Saturday to raise the national debt ceiling by $244 billion to $2.323 trillion. The debt limit bill, which still must be considered by the House, also restores the automatic spending cut mechanism of the Gramm-Rudman budget-balancing law, repeals the windfall-profits tax and provides relief for farmers in the drought-stricken South.

The Senate defense cuts dealt yet another blow to Reagan’s military buildup, which has foundered in recent years as Congress has grappled with the federal deficit. Congress approved $295 billion for defense spending in fiscal 1985 and $287 billion during the current fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30.

Many senators complained bitterly that while Congress has continued to invest billions of dollars in major weapons systems, it is slashing funding for the basic needs of the military, such as ammunition. Sen. Gordon J. Humphrey (R-N.H.), chairman of the Armed Services subcommittee on military preparedness, warned that these cuts have created “an impending and dangerous decline in the state of our national preparedness.”

Among other things, the Senate bill would:

--Provide $3.9 billion for Reagan’s so-called “Star Wars” space-based missile defense system.

--Lift an existing ban on the testing of anti-satellite weapons.

--Authorize production of a new generation of chemical weapons.

--Allow deployment in 1987 of the first of up to 50 MX missiles.

--Provide U.S. servicemen with a 4% pay increase.

Limits on Nuclear Arms

It also calls on Reagan to abide by the numerical sublimits imposed on nuclear weapons systems by the 1979 Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty.

Shortly before the bill passed, Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.) stunned the Senate by introducing an amendment that would revoke Reagan’s recent decision to sell 4 million metric tons of subsidized wheat to the Soviet Union. He argued that the deal proves Lenin’s dictum that the capitalist West “will sell us the rope with which we hang them.”

“We are in danger of confirming the few tattered prophecies which still sustain the ideology of Soviet communism,” Moynihan said. “Sooner or later, democracies are going to have to face up to this matter.”

But Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.), who originated the sale in an effort to help Republican senators seeking reelection in the farm states, persuaded the Senate to defeat Moynihan’s proposal on the ground that it would halt all agriculture sales to the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc nations.

Moynihan’s proposal failed by a vote of 72 to 24.

The Senate’s Saturday session, its first of the year, was designed to clear the agenda to allow consideration this week of two even more controversial subjects--sanctions against South Africa and the President’s $100-million aid program for the Nicaraguan rebels, or contras. Congress is trying to wrap up its work by Friday to begin a three-week recess, and most senators--particularly those campaigning for reelection--prefer long sessions now to a late start on the recess.

Not only does the Senate-passed defense bill give Reagan less than he requested overall, it also trims funding for the centerpiece of his defense strategy--the Strategic Defense Initiative or “Star Wars”--offering $1.4 billion less than the Administration’s request.

In addition, the Senate bill questions Reagan’s view that the research program can produce an “astrodome-style” defense to protect American citizens against incoming Soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles, and suggests it should instead be designed to defend U.S. missile sites.

Further Cut Expected

In the House, the “Star Wars” budget is expected to be slashed to $3.1 billion. The President requested $5.3 billion, which would have been a 73% increase over the current year funding.

One of the final amendments attached by voice vote to the Senate bill would also prohibit contracts to foreign firms for “Star Wars” research, unless there are no U.S. firms capable of doing it. Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.) estimated that it would affect contracts valued at $25 million.

Britain, West Germany and Israel have signed research contracts for “Star Wars,” and contract negotiations are under way with other countries including Italy and Japan.

Sen. John Glenn (D-Ohio), author of the “buy America” amendment, accused the Administration of offering contracts to foreign firms in an effort to buy the support of U.S. allies for the controversial missile defense system. He said the United States has become “like a kid with a sack of candy,” trying to buy friends.

Byrd Offers Amendment

The Senate also adopted by a voice vote an amendment proposed by Minority Leader Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) that would prohibit expenditure of any funds to keep open Rockwell International Corp.’s B-1 bomber production line after the last of the previously approved 100 planes are manufactured in 1988.

Byrd’s amendment was designed to counter an effort being mounted in the House to provide $200 million for fiscal 1987 to keep the B-1 production line open. Proponents of the measure argue that an open production line is needed in case something goes wrong with development of the next generation of bomber, the super-secret Stealth.

The Senate-passed defense budget also included several non-binding provisions designed to put pressure on Reagan for arms control. It calls on Reagan to abide by the SALT limits, to begin negotiations with the Soviets on a comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty, and to submit to the Senate for ratification two 1970s-era test ban treaties.

The MX missile, the subject of intense controversy in previous years, was barely mentioned in the Senate debate. The bill authorizes $1.42 billion for 21 MX missiles to be purchased during fiscal 1987, and reaffirms the previously imposed ceiling of 50 on the number that can be deployed.