GOP Senator Offers Job Bill Compromise : Budget: Hatfield proposes slicing at least $7 billion off Clinton’s $16.3-billion economic stimulus package. No sign yet of an agreement.

In the first sign of compromise from Senate Republicans in their long-running test of wills with President Clinton over his $16.3-billion economic stimulus package, moderate Sen. Mark O. Hatfield (R-Ore.) on Monday proposed a scaled-down version of between $8 billion and $9 billion.

But it was unclear whether Hatfield’s alternative provided a way out of the legislative stalemate that has effectively blocked progress on Clinton’s overall economic plan.

Hatfield’s proposal also falls far short of Clinton’s compromise offer Friday to reduce the stimulus spending package by $4 billion. At the same time, other Republicans sent mixed signals Monday on whether they would support the Hatfield alternative.

The maneuvering came as the White House and Senate Republicans headed for a final showdown this week over the stimulus package, billed by the Administration as a way to boost the economy by creating jobs.

Clinton, in a speech to the Building and Construction Trades Union, launched one of his harshest attacks yet against the GOP leadership, charging that the Republicans who say they oppose the stimulus bill because it increases the federal deficit are the same politicians who allowed the deficit to soar to record heights under two successive Republican presidents.

“This is the crowd that had the government for 12 years. They took the deficit from $1 trillion to $4 trillion,” chided Clinton. “Have they no shame? How can they say this? Sometimes, I think the secret of success in this town is being able to say the most amazing things with a straight face.

“I have compromised, I have held out my hand. I think it’s time for somebody to reach back across the divide of party politics and put the American people first.”

Still, the Administration’s chances of getting the entire package passed seemed to dwindle even further Monday, when Congress returned from its Easter recess. Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D-Me.) and Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) agreed to resolve the stimulus issue this week--in effect saying that they would do so regardless of the outcome.

That signaled that the Democrats may be ready to cut their losses in the face of the Republican filibuster and move on to other issues--although another vote to end the filibuster is scheduled for Wednesday morning.

It appeared doubtful, however, that they would be able to garner the 60 votes needed to end the stalemate, so it would appear that the best the White House can hope for is a watered-down version of the original Clinton proposal that sailed through the House.

If the economy falters again, the President likely would blame Senate Republicans for failing to pass legislation that the White House initially claimed would create 500,000 jobs. Clinton said that his scaled-down compromise package of $12.2 billion would generate 18% fewer jobs than his original plan.

Hatfield, the ranking Republican member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, outlined his plan to the Senate, calling for a one-year package of $8 billion to $9 billion in spending designed to create jobs.

His alternative includes a $4-billion extension of unemployment benefits, nearly $3 billion in highway aid, a summer job program, immunization funds, waste-water treatment grants for small, rural communities; small-business loans, and funds for the Older Americans Act and reforestation on public lands.

“People on both wings (of the Republican and Democratic parties) will be unhappy with this,” Hatfield said, adding that some GOP senators want no stimulus package at all. “But the time has come for both sides to move.”

He called his plan a “tentative proposal” that would be weighed by the Republican caucus.

Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) praised Hatfield as a “voice of moderation” and said that his plan is an “encouraging note” in the long partisan standoff over Clinton’s proposal.

But other Republican senators indicated that the White House was not lobbying to gain further Republican support for a compromise along the lines proposed by Hatfield. A spokesman for Sen. John H. Chafee (R-R.I.), a moderate who sometimes votes with Democrats, said that the senator had not been contacted by anyone in the Administration about the stimulus package.

Other Republicans said that voters in their home states showed little support for Clinton’s stimulus plan--giving them free reign to continue to oppose it. Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) said that the stalemate in the Senate over the stimulus package was the No. 1 topic at meetings he conducted in 28 of Iowa’s 99 counties.

“I did not hear anyone criticize the Republican approach,” Grassley told the Senate. “The Democratic charge that Republicans are ‘guardians of gridlock’ is falling on deaf ears.”