GOP Leaders Fight Over How to Battle Clinton : Economy: Some want to attack budget plan by seeking more spending cuts. Others favor wait-and-see strategy.

Congressional Republicans, sensing political opportunity, rushed to the attack when President Clinton first unveiled an economic blueprint that includes higher taxes and new government spending.

But now, with Clinton drawing strong support in the polls and winning endorsements from some traditional Republican constituencies, the GOP is sharply divided about what its strategy should be.

One faction is eager to propose more sweeping spending cuts. Another prefers to sit back, buying time and hoping public anger will mount as the specifics of Clinton’s plan become more widely understood.

The President, visibly irritated by the continuing drumbeat of Republican criticism, turned up the heat when he was asked Thursday about the GOP calls for additional spending cuts. “I have a difficult time taking these people seriously,” Clinton said. “Anybody can say whatever they want about more spending cuts, but why are you asking me? Why don’t you ask them?”

White House Budget Director Leon E. Panetta has put it more bluntly, telling the Republicans: “Put up or shut up.”

Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) has promised that a specific GOP plan is coming but only after the President submits a far more detailed version of his own budget, which is expected to be delivered to Congress in April.

“We have the blueprint, but we do not know what the details are,” Dole said in a particularly harsh speech on the Senate floor.

House Minority Whip Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) took a similar view. He said he would ask Clinton at a meeting with House Republicans next week to produce a formal budget. “And then, we will go nose to nose with him,” Gingrich said in an interview.

But, he said, Republicans should not be asked to come up with specific alternative programs without knowing precisely what the Administration proposes.

Clearly stung by White House Communications Director George Stephanopoulos’ dismissal of GOP complaints as “carping and whining,” Dole declared: “They ought to calm down, go out for a weekend, have a Diet Coke, enjoy yourself. The campaign is over. You won. Now comes the hard part: leading America.”

The GOP verbal shots underscored the tension that is building as congressional Republicans ponder their new role as members of a party out of power for the first time in 12 years.

On one hand, they know that deficit reduction cannot be achieved without pain and to offer their own prescription is to come under fire themselves. Yet they also realize that if voters perceive their behavior as blind obstructionism, they risk being blamed for continuing the “gridlock” that has prevented the government from moving forward on many pressing national problems.

Their strategy thus far has brought criticism from their own ranks. Former Sen. Warren B. Rudman (R-N.H.), a highly respected senator who retired last year over what he said was frustration over Congress’ failure to reduce the deficit, said his former colleagues “owe it to the country to be a responsible opposition. Simply to sit back in a petulant way and say: ‘You got elected, you do it,’ is in my view defaulting responsibility.”

Rudman, who made his comments on Wednesday night’s “McNeil/Lehrer Newshour” on PBS, added: “I understand the politics of all that, but the fact is that, if we can make this package better, then it’s in the best interests of the country, and I hope they will.”

On Thursday, Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Tex.), who has led much of the GOP criticism of Clinton’s package, put forward an amendment that he said “will give the House and Senate members the ability to choose.” In essence, it would set a target number for spending cuts, eliminate Clinton’s $16-billion economic stimulus package and use the savings to avoid raising many of the taxes Clinton has proposed.

Separately, Jack Kemp, a leading conservative who is considered a possible nominee for the 1996 GOP presidential nomination, announced the formation of a national coalition to defeat Clinton’s plan. His approach, he said, would focus on boosting economic growth.

“My biggest problem with the Republican response is that they have yet to focus on the real issue, which is how to make the pie bigger,” Kemp said. “We should get deficits down, but we should not do it on the backs of the poor and the middle class.”

Meanwhile, Clinton moved to reinforce his support by bringing to the White House two-dozen business and labor leaders who support the concepts embodied in his economic plan.

Pointing to the gathering of individuals who normally disagree on economic issues--labor leaders and chief corporate officers, Democrats and Republicans--Clinton attempted to demonstrate united support for his plan.

But some in the group hinted that they might look for ways to change elements that may be discomforting to their own particular interests.

“The concept of a BTU tax on energy and an increased corporate income tax are essential to the success of the President’s plan,” said Atlantic Richfield Co. Chairman Lodwrick M. Cook, a longtime Republican. “A broad-based energy tax must be made as simple as possible to ensure fairness and minimize the cost of collection.”

AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland was more to the point, opposing the Administration’s plans to freeze federal employees’ salaries because the workers would “bear a disproportionate burden. . . . There must be a better way to meet the government’s fiscal needs, and we will work with the Administration and Congress in this regard.”

Times staff writers William J. Eaton and James Risen contributed to this story.