Democrats Expect Hot Debate; Hollings Calls Budget ‘Fraud’

WASHINGTON — President Bush’s $1.23-trillion budget drew a skeptical response from several Democrats in Congress today with one senator describing it as “another fraud” and a House leader calling for scaling back the President’s defense proposals.

While Democrats who control both houses of Congress were careful not to dismiss the budget out of hand--in past years they had often characterized Reagan Administration budgets as “dead on arrival”--they predicted a brutal debate over spending priorities.

“They continue to jimmy the figures,” Sen. Ernest F. Hollings (D-S.C.), a high-ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, said of the Bush proposal. “It’s another fraud.”

“I think it’s a stand-pat budget. I don’t think it’s a budget that really meets our needs,” said House Majority Leader Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri.

House Speaker Thomas S. Foley of Washington emerged from a White House meeting and immediately predicted a “larger reduction” in defense spending than Bush has proposed.

“There’ll be a debate about defense; there’s no question about that,” said Foley, making note of the changes under way in Eastern Europe that would allow the United States to scale back its military presence.