Plenary Session Transcripts

Governors Attending:

Guests:

Discussion Subjects:

• Agriculture and Rural Development (AG) - state issues in the 1990 Farm Bill, including the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT); drought; environmental concerns; and rural development
• Economic Development and Technological Innovation (ED) - competitiveness; report on tax-exempt financing; and the liability crisis and international competition
• Energy and Environment (EE) - global climate change and its implications for policy
• Executive Committee (Exec) - monetary policy; and the new global economy
• Human Resources (HR) - community service; review of the Survey of Community Service Programs; and an overview of the health care system
• International Trade and Foreign Relations (ITFR) - Europe 1992; new markets for American products; reports of the Lead Governor on U.S.-Canada Relations and the Lead Governors on Tourism; trade opportunities in South East Asian nations; and a report on the U.S. International Cultural and Trade Center
• Justice and Public Safety (JPS) - prison crowding and the use of sentencing guidelines; the role of alternative punishments; report of the Lead Governor on Substance Abuse and Drug Trafficking; drug enforcement in urban settings; and an update on national drug control policy
• Transportation, Commerce, and Communications (TCC) - the economic promise of telecommunications; and transportation for the future
• Other Governors' Session - special session on education
• 1988-89 Chair Virginia Gov. Gerald L. Baliles' Initiative - America in Transition: The International Frontier
• Plenary Session Discussion Subjects - Address by President George H.W. Bush; international business and trade; the role of the press beyond our borders; transportation; and education

Points of Interest:

In his address to the Governors, President George H.W. Bush said that his Administration had proposed the first major revision of the Clean Air Act in more than a decade. He also talked of the educational reform package that he had sent to Congress, based on the following four principles rooted in the practical experience of the states.

• Reform required recognition and reward of achievement.
• Reform required targeting of federal dollars to those most in need.
• Reform required flexibility and choice, both for parents in their selection of schools and for schools in their selection of teachers and administrators.
• The essence of reform was accountability in education and reward for schools that showed progress.

The President asked Governors to work with him at a summit on education to be held the following September.

The President also talked about welfare reform that had been passed as the Family Support Act of 1988. He said that innovative policies had come from the states, and the Administration wanted to ensure that the states remained free to experiment with reforms.

U.S. Senator Bill Bradley of New Jersey told Governors that social, economic, and political reforms in the Soviet Union presented the United States with the challenge of living up to our own ideals in order to prove our system of government worthy of adopting. He also told Governors that they could be helpful to individual Soviet republics in setting up their new system of government. During a question and answer session, then-Governor Bill Clinton of Arkansas asked about the significance of the fact that China seemed to be following a strategy of maintaining political control at the same time it fostered economic markets, while the Soviet Union was doing the opposite. Sen. Bradley responded that he thought the Soviet approach was a mistake and that Soviet Premier Gorbachev would have to show a spurt in economic production very quickly in order to succeed.

Derek Burney, Canada's Ambassador to the United States, noted that U.S. trade with Canada exceeded U.S. trade with Japan, as well as with Britain, France, West Germany, and Italy combined. He added that Canada was the number one export market for nearly all American firms, and that between 1981 and 1988, U.S. exports to Canada had grown twice as fast as U.S. exports globally.

In presenting the report of the Governors' Task Force on Domestic Markets, Governor Jim Blanchard of Michigan noted that more than one-quarter of every American dollar was spent on imports, an amount that had nearly doubled in the previous ten years. Among the task force's observations was that U.S. businesses required a competitive enterprise system in order to succeed against foreign competition, which would involve everything from infrastructure to helping with new technologies and investing in human resources—all areas in which states could be catalysts.

The report of the Governors' Task Force on the Transportation Infrastructure concluded that a root cause of the decline in the competitive position of the U.S. in the international economy was the low rate at which the nation had chosen to add to its stock of highways, port facilities, and airports to aid in the production and distribution of goods and services. It was noted that efforts needed to be made to find new resources to strengthen the infrastructure, including possible expansion of the private sector's role in investing in what was once considered an exclusively public domain.

Mayor Andrew Young of Atlanta talked about the importance of local government involvement in the expansion of trade. He noted that with the coming consolidation of the European community, the U.S. would have to be much more of a partner with Asia and the Pacific Rim as well as with the developing world, where 79 percent of the global market population was predicted to live by the year 2000.

CBS News anchor Dan Rather talked to the Governors about myriad concerns, including his belief that the spread of drugs was the greatest internal threat to the survival of the United States since slavery. He also complained that Americans were ignorant of the language, customs, history, and geography of the rest of the world, which accounted for our complacency about globalization. He recommended that teachers be better recognized and rewarded, and that the media provide greater coverage of foreign news. In response to the concern of Governors about how to get their messages across to a public that seemed to be more responsive to sensationalism, Rather recommended that they just keep hitting the same theme again and again until the message was conveyed. In response to a question about whether the media should pander to political mud slinging, he said that journalists to a certain extent lacked the intestinal fortitude to challenge it. But he agreed that they should do a better job of pointing out when facts did not match rhetoric.

U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Samuel Skinner talked about the President's top priority of developing a strategic transportation plan for the 21^st century. He said that the nation could no longer tolerate a system that used transit and highway trust funds to balance the budget, and he told the Governors that he shared their opposition to a one-time gas user's tax to reduce the deficit. At the same time, he noted that since the states had begun—in accordance with 1987 federal authorization—to raise speed limits above 55 miles per hour on rural interstates, fatalities on those highways had increased 14 percent. He urged gubernatorial efforts to ensure that posted speed limits were enforced. He also emphasized that users of mass transit and highways needed to understand the importance of user fees in rebuilding the nation's infrastructure, and he said that he advocated raising state gas taxes.

Memorable Quotes:

Senator Bill Bradley of New Jersey said about changes in the Soviet Union: "...right now in the Soviet Union we have a leadership that is actually evaluating fresh concepts...I kind of snuck into the back room where some of the Moscow deputies were meeting in preparation for the party Congress...And they were constantly making references...to the United States and to the Congress. And so I think an American example is enormously important ...as the Soviet Union opens itself up to begin to assess what it costs to be a part of an international economic system...I would suggest to you that Governors can play and should play an enormously important role in this process. This is particularly so as the republics, all fifteen of them, move towards a more open and independent relationship with the rest of the world...I think, frankly, Governors can have an impact by entering into partnerships, relationships with various republics, between states and various republics..."

Derek Burney, Canadian Ambassador to the United States, said of the recently-negotiated Free Trade Agreement between Canada and the U.S.: "Beyond North America, the Free Trade Agreement positions Canada and the United States together to face the wider challenges of the global trading environment...In a world of increasing interdependence...free trade equips us to deal with globalization. In an era of change, it equips us to manage the future. I invite you to pick up the challenge right here in North America when you consider trade promotion, procurement, or investment prospects for your state. Beware the allure of the exotic, examine the pragmatic opportunities right next door, nurture the market."

President George Bush said: "...what is the role of the governor in the American political life? ...a 19^th century observer once asked a country politician the same question. And the answer he got was this: The governor accounts for absolutely nothing and is paid only $1200. Well, you still can't get rich off a public salary, but today, I don't think there's any question in the minds of the American people that the office of governor accounts for an awful lot...In fact, leadership in America is increasingly the sum of your efforts and of your vision, and that's why I consider myself a federalist. I was there when President Reagan issued the executive order on federalism, and I want you to know that I stand by it. We believe in federalism, and yet we are a people, one nation, indivisible. Just as we share our cherished Constitution, so we also share common challenges and responsibilities. To cure our nation of illiteracy and drug abuse and crime, we must act in tandem, President with governor, governor with mayor, up and down the line; and, in short, we've got to find our collective link as a nation."

Secretary Samuel Skinner of the U.S. Department of Transportation said: "...it is important that we begin to spend the balances of the trust funds as soon as possible on mass transit, highway, and aviation infrastructure. We can no longer tolerate a system that uses transit funds and highway trust funds to balance the budget...We've got to find a way, and we've got to do it together, to work with the Congress to make them understand that every time there is a problem with the budget deficit they cannot continue to take funds from the trust fund from aviation passengers or user fees from highway taxes and balance the budget."

Mayor Andrew Young of Atlanta said: "With 1992 and the consolidation of a European community, the United States is going to have to be much more a partner with Asia and the Pacific Rim and also the developing world. There are figures that indicate that by the year 2000, 79 percent of the global market population-wise is going to be in what we now consider the developing world that is not in Europe and not in Japan, but in the rest of the world that needs and wants everything that we have generated as the American way of life. And somehow, I think finding a way to direct our mayors in the direction of that market has, I think, tremendous potential...I think that governors ought to seek out partnership with the mayors and give them a little more personal stake."

Dan Rather of CBS News said: "I know that you folks, you Governors, have one of the hardest jobs in America; and I think you do have the toughest job in American politics...unlike members of the House and Senate in Washington, you have to live in the same state with the same people whose lives are affected by your decisions. Unlike your merry pranksters in Washington, you cannot hide behind that well-insulated wall, that institutionalized thing we call the Congress. There's only you, the top man or woman, up there alone, facing the voters in the front line with your back to the wall...some...might answer...that the President has the tougher job...[but] unlike you, Presidents don't have to balance a budget. They don't have to, so they don't."

Governor George Sinner of North Dakota asked Dan Rather of CBS News: "There's an old Chinese proverb that says he who slings mud loses ground, and I fear that as our campaigns go more and more dirtily...as we all sling mud the nation loses ground. The question is, can you help us? Will you blast us editorially and forcefully and regularly when we are part of these kind of campaigns...?" Rather responded in part: "Let's don't kid one another. Lately, a lot of elections have been won by the sort of thing you described...I do think we have a responsibility and we can do a better job of, for example, when the facts do not match the rhetoric...pointing it out and not the next day or the next week, but pointing it out at the same time that you play, you broadcast, or you write about the attack."

Selected Policy Positions Adopted:
(1) Calling on Congress and the Administration to take significant steps toward deficit reduction without tax increases if possible, to include maintenance of current services funding for safety net programs and selective freezes in defense and domestic discretionary programs; (2) supporting the creation of a coastal protection trust fund to help keep coastal waters suitable for fishing and swimming; (3) conditionally urging ratification of international agreements on liability for oil spill cleanups; (4) supporting a comprehensive attack on drug abuse and trafficking via mandatory testing of drug offenders on parole, drug-free workplaces, the use of closed military based for prisons, 10-year penalties for the use of semiautomatic weapons during violent crimes or drug felonies, the development of debt reduction policies for developing countries that discourage illegal drug production and encourage market development of other goods, tightening foreign aid eligibility requirements to require cooperation with U.S. anti-drug efforts, and convening a hemispheric drug summit for the heads of nations in North, South, and Central America; (5) with respect to alternative sentencing recommendations, urging states to consider an accountability method of sentencing through which judges could impose a variety of sanctions ranging from unsupervised custody to confinement to secure correctional facilities; (6) urging the expansion of choice in public schools and greater minority access to higher education; (7) encouraging comprehensive, community-based systems for child care; (8) urging Congress to place a two-year moratorium on new Medicaid mandates, giving Governors time to work with Congress and the Administration to seek ways of stemming escalating costs while ensuring access and quality in the health care system; and (9) outlining tourism's links with trade, economic and rural development, infrastructure, and international air service.

Presidential Addresses: