The Senate is expected to pass the budget resolution, which sets basic spending and taxing limits, on Thursday. The House passed its version, 333 to 99, at 3 28 this morning after a 13 hour debate, but only after a cliff hanging, 216 to 214 vote against adding $12 billion to the $125 billion already allocated for highways in the next five years.

Despite the opposition of Representative Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri, the minority leader, 132 Democrats voted for the budget resolution along with 201 Republicans. Voting against it were 72 Democrats, 26 Republicans and 1 independent.

Both Houses are considering very similar proposals, which include $85 billion in tax cuts and curbs on spending for Medicare, defense and most domestic programs below the level needed to keep pace with inflation. The net of spending cuts would be $204 billion through 2002, and if all goes according to the expectations of the plan’s supporters the budget would be balanced in that year for the first time since 1969.

But the seven hour battle over the $30 billion increase in the cigarette tax to pay for grants to states to help buy insurance for children of the working poor kept the Senate from finishing its work on the measure tonight.

This morning, Mr. Kennedy said, Vice President Al Gore’s office called to say the Vice President would come to the Capitol to break a possible tie in favor of the Hatch Kennedy plan. A White House aide said, ”If anything, there was a miscommunication among Senator Kennedy’s staff, because that was never communicated by Vice President’s office.”

By late afternoon, after complaints by Mr. Lott and other Republicans that Mr. Clinton had promised to help produce votes to keep their budget deals intact, Franklin D. Raines, director of the Office of Management and Budget, and John Hilley, his chief lobbyist, started calling Democratic senators.

Some were impressed, some were annoyed, but in the end four likely supporters of the Hatch Kennedy plan who had been called voted against it. So did at least three Republicans who had said they supported the plan. In all, 47 Republicans and 8 Democrats voted to kill the proposal, while 8 Republicans and 37 Democrats voted for it.

As the vote was beginning around 4 P.M., Michael D. McCurry, Mr. Clinton’s press secretary, explained the White House position this way

”As a free standing matter, I think this President’s sympathies are pretty clear on the thrust of the legislation. The problem is, the amendment doesn’t stand freely. It stands encumbering the balanced budget agreement we also fought very hard for. The President is not about to see all that hard work go down the drain, and he had very clearly been told by the majority leader that this amendment is a deal buster, and he is not gong to let that agreement go down.”

Senator Kennedy scoffed at the idea of dealing with the measure alone. ”That’s like spitting in the wind,” he said, explaining that as a free standing bill it would be subject to a filibuster and need 60 votes, and moreover would have to be attached to a tax bill from the House. As part of the budget measure, it cannot be filibustered and needs only 51 votes.

Mr. Hatch told the Senate ”There is no way of knowing, but I think we would have won this one had we held the vote at the scheduled time of 11 30. I think the President and the people in the White House caved here.” He said he thought Mr. Lott had been bluffing about withdrawing the budget bill.

Mr. Kennedy was milder, though he made a point of saying his calls to Mr. Clinton and Mr. Gore on Tuesday had not been returned. He said he thought the vote showed that a majority was attainable, and said he thought the President was ”mistaken” to work against the bill. And he said ”We shall offer it again and again until we prevail. It’s more important to protect children than to protect the tobacco industry.”

When he was asked at a news conference whether he expected the President’s support on future efforts, he turned to Mr. Hatch and said, ”Why don’t you answer that.” Mr. Hatch said, ”Yes.” Then Mr. Kennedy said, ”I would hope he would.”

Today’s battle was not definitive. The budget resolution is a broad outline, to be followed by specific tax and spending measures. And it already includes $16 billion aimed at children’s health, although it also reduces money for hospitals serving children by nearly half that much. Mr. Hatch and Mr. Kennedy argued that the $16 billion would only provide coverage for perhaps 4 million of the 10 million children without health insurance and that the additional $20 billion they wanted to spend (with the other $10 billion set aside for deficit reduction) would finish the job.

Senator Don Nickles of Oklahoma, the Republican whip, complained, ”No one in their wildest dreams would have said we should have $36 billion to solve this problem, which I guarantee you is not that big.”

Although the most effective attacks on their proposal were the ones that suggested it would destroy children’s hopes for a balanced budget, it was denounced substantively from several different, and occasionally conflicting, directions.

Senator Wendell H. Ford, a Kentucky Democrat, said it would lead to reduced smoking and cause great harm to his state’s economy. But Senator Lauch Faircloth, a North Carolina Republican, said it would hurt the poor because they would keep on smoking and have to pay higher taxes. He called it ”an opportunity to further gouge the working people of this country.”

Other Republicans called it an entitlement and said the money would not be enough and states would be stuck with additional costs, or said it was a step toward big government.

Senator Pete V. Domenici of New Mexico, the Republican who heads the Budget Committee, repeatedly attacked the idea as contrary to the budget deal. ”There can be no more frontal attack in violation of this agreement than this amendment,” Mr. Domenici said. But he also contended that no vote on the budget resolution could guarantee a tobacco tax increase for it would be up to the Finance Committee to decide what taxes to recommend.

Mr. Hatch replied that everyone knew what the amendment was about and he said the Finance Committee would follow the will of the Senate. ”It’s Joey versus Joe Camel and no procedural niceties can obscure this reality and everybody here knows it,” Mr. Hatch said. Joey is a tyke in an advertisement proponents of Hatch Kennedy put in The Washington Post today. Joe Camel is the cartoon character industry critics say R. J. Reynolds uses to push its Camel brand on children.

Photo Senators Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, left, and Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts met yesterday with representatives of the Children’s Defense Fund and the American Cancer Society outside the Senate chamber. (Paul Hosefros/The New York Times)(pg. B12)

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