Plan Is Criticized but Expected to Survive : Reaction: Dole objects to absence of health and welfare reform costs. Budget proposal wins Democratic praise for its restraint and cutbacks.

Many congressional Democrats swallowed hard Monday as they contemplated parts of President Clinton’s 1995 budget, while leading Republicans charged that the cost of his health care and welfare reform plans are “missing in action” from the $1.5-trillion blueprint.

Initial reaction indicated, however, that the broad outline of the President’s budget would survive as it winds its way through Congress, despite expected guerrilla warfare over some of the 115 programs he targeted for elimination and the 300 others marked for sharp cutbacks.

“The budget the President sent us is one of the most penny-pinching budgets we’ve had in years,” said Sen. James Sasser (D-Tenn.), chairman of the Senate Budget Committee. Even so, Sasser predicted that Congress would live within the overall budgetary constraints to help pay for Clinton’s priority programs.

“There’ll be some mixing and matching under those (budget) caps but those caps are here to stay,” observed Rep. Martin O. Sabo (D-Minn.), chairman of the House Budget Committee.

Even the rhetorical blasts from Republicans did not suggest major changes in Clinton’s approach.

“Most budgets are quickly forgotten but this one will be remembered for what it doesn’t contain--most of the President’s health care plans and cuts needed to finance comprehensive welfare reform,” said Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.).

Rep. John R. Kasich (R-Ohio) said that Clinton lacks the courage to make major reductions in mandatory benefit programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, adding: “To say that a $176-billion deficit is a reason to pop the champagne corks shows we are almost anesthetized by deficits now.” He was referring to the Administration’s new estimate of next year’s funding shortfall.

While GOP lawmakers grudgingly credited Clinton for suggesting termination of federal programs and reductions in others, they deplored the fact that roughly half of the savings would be diverted to increased outlays for Clinton’s new initiatives.

“The Clinton budget is an intricate shell game in which money from one program is transferred to another,” complained Sen. Connie Mack (R-Fla.). “The President should have used spending cuts to reduce the deficit, not to pay for more programs.”

On the other hand, the budget knife is being wielded too deeply for some members of the President’s party, who objected to proposed cuts in long-entrenched programs such as grants to help low-income residents pay home heating bills and modernization of public housing.

An aide to Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D-Me.) said that Mitchell is “disappointed” by the proposed cut of $1.2 billion in home heating payments and will do all he can to see that the program has sufficient funds. Before the budget was submitted, 51 senators from cold-weather states asked the President to spare the popular program.

Rival groups of lawmakers disputed whether Clinton cut too much, or not enough, from military spending, setting up future floor battles in both the House and Senate.

Rep. Ronald V. Dellums (D-Oakland), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, argued that the request for $252.8 billion in new funding authorization for the Pentagon is “an enormous commitment of scarce economic resources that may not be justified by our national security needs.”

But Rep. Floyd D. Spence (R-S.C.), ranking Republican on the panel, contended that Clinton plans to cut $9 billion in outlays from current defense spending levels in a way that is “unacceptable.” Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.) said that Clinton is reducing military spending “too far and too fast.”

Some Capitol Hill observers said that they believe the President managed to preempt deeper new cuts in federal outlays, while making room for his own priorities in early childhood education, job retraining, crime prevention and technology development.

“Clinton has a middle ground he can probably sustain,” said Thomas E. Mann, a specialist in Congress at the Brookings Institution. “It’s painful, but it shows the seriousness of the effort. If Democrats want to do new things, they’ll have to do less of the old ones.”

Unlike last year, when the President’s budget survived by a single vote in dramatic showdowns in both the House and Senate, the fights this year will be waged primarily in the lower-profile appropriations committees.

Lawmakers know that if they reject one of the cuts proposed by Clinton, they will have to come up with another reduction to replace it because of the “hard freeze” Congress has enacted on defense, domestic and international spending. The spending cap is about $542 billion for the 1995 fiscal year starting Oct. 1.

Even for some members of his own party, the President was not bold enough with his proposed budget. As Sen. Bill Bradley (D-N.J.) put it: “I would have preferred even deeper spending cuts in this budget. Elimination of the Selective Service system and the space station should be targeted as well.”

Joining the chorus, former Democratic Sen. Paul E. Tsongas and former GOP Sen. Warren B. Rudman, co-chairs of the Concord Coalition, a nonpartisan organization concerned about federal budget deficits, said that the Clinton budget is disappointing.

“Our goal should be a zero deficit within six years,” Tsongas said. “With or without savings from health care reform, the Clinton budget never gets on the path to zero. . . . That’s unacceptable.”