SENATE BUDGET VOTE DRAWS NEAR

"We're sticking to our guns," Sen. Bob Dole told reporters Friday as Senators prepared to vote on their version of the balanced budget bill one day after jubilant House Republicans passed theirs. Senators today voted down a Democratic alternative proposal, 80-19. The Majority Leader promised that the Senate would produce the same radical change as the House bill. "Dole appears to have his troops in line," reports TIME's Karen Tumulty. "He's made a number of concessions to wavering moderates, but the bill is largely intact, and it is remarkable the discipline Dole and Gingrich have maintained to advance these budget bills. It's something the Democrats never achieved." The Senate package revamps Medicare, Medicaid and various other programs, slowing federal spending by $1 trillion over seven years while providing some $245 billion in tax relief. What next? Vice President Al Gore told Larry King last night: "It will be vetoed in a flash." Despite such bravado, Tumulty notes, congressional Democrats have little faith in the President's commitment to stave off Republican demands when a compromise bill is worked out later this fall.