Spending Plan Clears Fast-Acting Senate

The Senate, acting earlier than ever on a congressional spending blueprint, overwhelmingly adopted a bipartisan $1.1-trillion budget Thursday that adds $2.6 billion to President Reagan’s program for fighting drug addiction.

Sponsors of the resolution, which passed 69 to 26, said that it is designed to reduce the federal deficit from the current $150 billion to $136 billion in line with an agreement last November between Congress and the White House.

The measure now will go to a Senate-House conference to reconcile differences with a House-passed resolution that also provides for $1.1 trillion in spending but does not include the extra “war on drugs” package.

Would Exceed Cap

The additional drug funds would breach the spending cap for domestic programs that was negotiated by congressional leaders with the White House last November.

Senate advocates said that the extra funds for enforcement of drug laws and treatment of drug addicts does not violate the November agreement since they would be offset by additional revenue from stricter enforcement of the tax laws and collection of government debts.

No new taxes were envisioned in either bill, however, and critics in both chambers warned that rosy economic projections may underestimate the actual deficit by as much as $50 billion in the fiscal year starting Oct. 1.

Senate managers of the resolution acknowledged the criticism but insisted that the document was the best that could be achieved in an election year when hard choices are never easy to make.

Sen. Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.) said that the budget was the most “futuristic” in history because of a 27% increase in spending to relaunch the space shuttle and establish a space station and an 11% rise in research funds earmarked for the National Science Foundation.

House Version Differs

The House version, however, contained smaller increases for space-science programs and allocated substantially more resources for education and health.

Sen. Lawton Chiles (D-Fla.), chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, said that he hopes to begin negotiations with the House next week on a compromise version that will be sent back for approval by both chambers as a guideline for action on actual appropriations bills.

“With good will, I am sure these differences can be resolved,” said Chairman William H. Gray III (D-Pa.) of the House budget panel.

One major difference involves a federal pay increase expected next Jan. 1. The House opted for a 3% across-the-board raise for military and civilian employees while the Senate went along with the President’s plan for a 4.3% increase for the armed forces and a 2% raise for civil servants.

The Senate acted more swiftly this year than at any time since Congress overhauled its budget-writing procedures in 1974. Congressional leaders said that final adoption of a budget by mid-May, as now planned, would prevent the kind of delay in acting on money bills that has tied up many government programs in recent years.

Unlike the partisan wrangles that accompanied passage of budget resolutions in previous years, however, both the Senate and House approved the budget with rare harmony once the November agreement provided ceilings for defense spending, foreign aid, domestic spending and the size of the anticipated deficit for the 1989 fiscal year.