Plenary Session Transcripts

• Economic Development and Commerce (EDC) - telecommunications; state-federal issues in transportation; GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) adoption and implementation; and enhancing the state role in science and technology policy for economic growth
• Human Resources (HR) - streamlining federal and state workforce development systems; and lessons learned from federal and state programmatic barriers to service integration
• Natural Resources (NR) - managing risk: making the right choices; the state role in developing green technologies; preparation for the 1995 Farm Bill; and the Administration's environmental priorities and pending legislation
  Other Governors' Sessions - School-to-Work roundtable; education leadership team; health care leadership team; and welfare reform leadership team
• 1993-94 Chair South Carolina Gov. Carroll A. Campell Jr.'s Initiative - Partnerships for Progress
• Plenary Session Discussion Subjects - Addresses by President Bill Clinton and U.S. Senate leaders regarding health care reform; the City Year program for youth community service; technology use; education; and teaching tolerance

U.S. Senator Don Nickles (R-OK) said that many Republicans were opposed to features of the Clinton plan such as mandated employer coverage, the requirement of payroll tax increases, subsidies for the elderly and small businesses, and coverage for prescription drugs. In contrast, the Republican plan would offer tax breaks to permit people to self-insure, target assistance for low-income Americans, and provide medical malpractice reform. Governor Robert Casey of Pennsylvania expressed particular concern that federally-mandated coverage could result in open access to abortion.

U.S. Senator George Mitchell (D-ME) referred to NGA's proposal for legislation that would permit states to establish purchasing cooperatives for the unemployed and for workers in small firms. He noted that despite Republican opposition in Congress to the idea of establishing a standard benefit level, both Republican and Democratic Governors supported the concept. He also argued that because the Republican plan offered no restraint on rising health care costs yet proposed capping federal spending on Medicaid—which Governors of both parties opposed—it would result in a shift of health care costs to the states.

Governors discussed the importance of educating young Americans in science and mathematics to prepare them for the high-tech jobs of the future. NGA's Committee on Economic Development and Commerce also reported on its study of ways in which states could promote the use of telecommunications and accelerate deployment of the national information infrastructure. A number of Governors gave presentations on their states' uses of telecommunications for the benefit of their citizens. Among them was Maryland's effort to implement a system of electronic benefits transfer, under which beneficiaries of programs such as Food Stamps would use a credit-type card to track their spending of government funds. However, the plan faced legal opposition and the potential to be regulated on a par with consumer banking, such that the state would be required to replace lost or stolen benefits above a specific amount. Were that potential to become a reality, Maryland would have to either abandon the electronic benefits transfer system or face losses of an expected $20 million annually.

Steven Spielberg spoke of using film as a tool to teach tolerance. In cooperation with Governors, he had developed a program to show his film Schindler's List in as many schools as possible. [The film was based on the true story of Oskar Schindler, a war profiteer who used Jews as cheap labor but—after seeing the horrors of the Nazi regime—ultimately saved as many Jews as he could by bribing a Nazi official to release them from a concentration camp to work in his munitions factory.] Spielberg also urged that social studies curriculum be enlarged to include examination of racial and ethnic intolerance.

Noted filmmaker Steven Spielberg, who spoke to the Governors about the need for states to promote the teaching of tolerance to young people, said: "In schools today, young people are not being taught about the questions of personal responsibilities. Those are the seeds that can breed indifference and then intolerance...We cannot forget the lessons of the past. Such horrors happen, not just because of what bad people do, but because good people often stand around and do nothing. To deny and forget the hate crimes of the past will guarantee their recurrence...In 20 years or 30 years from now, all of the victims of the Holocaust will be gone, and that is when truth can become legend. A significant effort needs to be waged in teaching your children and my children about what happened so that the next generation will not tolerate what the last generation perhaps chose to ignore...I made [the film] Schindler's List to remember the six million Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust. And when I did, I was appalled at the number of people in this country who knew little, if anything, about one of the most horrible events in modern history. And if they didn't know about that, how much did they really know about slavery and segregation, Wounded Knee and the Trail of Tears, the Ku Klux Klan, the burning of crosses, the relegation of Japanese Americans to the U.S. internment camps during World War II, the 600,000 Armenians massacred in 1915, the resurgence of Skin Heads and the Aryan Nation...escalated hatred in Soweto, Bosnia and Rwanda today..."

President Bill Clinton said: "...I hope that all of us will support the notion that there ought to be some period after which we end welfare as we know it."

Selected Policy Positions Adopted:
(1) Opposing a pending congressional proposal to ban certain food stamp waivers for one year; (2) seeking multi-year concurrent authorization to allow for more efficient statewide, long-term aviation planning; (3) suggesting that in the governmental division of labor to attack the problem of violent crime, state and local governments develop programs to address sexual violence, domestic violence, child abuse, hate crimes, and youth violence; and (4) endorsing the continuation of legislative, educational, and law enforcement support programs for missing children.