Plenary Session Transcripts

• Economic Development and Commerce (EDC) - promoting U.S. tourism internationally; and coordinating state and federal trade efforts
• Human Resources (HR) - quality teachers, successful students; and report on Fatherhood Initiative
• Natural Resources (NR) - smart growth; and U.S.-Canadian agricultural and environmental issues
• Other Governors' Sessions - Information Technology Task Force; and Governors and Corporate Fellows roundtable discussions
• 1998-99 Chair Delaware Gov. Thomas Carper's Initiative - Smart Kids for Our Future
• Plenary Session Discussion Subjects - Presentations by President Bill Clinton, retired General Colin Powell, and Senator Don Nickles of Oklahoma; student achievement through extra learning; and harnessing technology in the classroom

The President also said that he was proposing to set aside more than three-fourths of the projected budget surplus to help lengthen the life of the Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds. What remained of the expected budget surplus would be sufficient to cover other obligations and pay off all the publicly held debt for the first time since Andrew Jackson was President. Clinton acknowledged the appeal of the Republican plan to devote one-third of the surplus to tax cuts. However, the result would be less debt reduction, which would cause interest rates to rise, meaning that the public would end up paying back in higher interest costs what they had received in tax cuts.

U.S. Senator Don Nickles (R-OK) spoke in favor of the Republican plan for tax cuts, which he said was intended to help individuals cover their health care costs. He said that the Republican proposal for tax reform would also eliminate the marriage penalty, raise the income level at which a move to the 28 percent tax bracket was triggered, and provide estate tax relief. The proposed legislation also included a sunset provision to ensure that tax relief could be discontinued if the budget surplus did not meet projections.

Senator Nickles also expressed support for reducing and consolidating federal education programs and accused the Clinton Administration of seeking not only to add to programs but also to pay for the addition of teachers and to fund school construction and renovation, two areas that were the responsibility of the states.

Governors reviewed two ways of raising student achievement: extra learning, and harnessing technology in classrooms. School administrators, teachers, and students told Governors of the benefits of after-school programs and the ways in which technology was being used to pique student interest in learning. Emphasis was placed on the importance of ongoing professional training to help teachers learn how to use technology in the classroom, as well as on helping children to develop the critical skills necessary to use the Internet safely and judiciously.

Retired General Colin Powell spoke on behalf of America's Promise, a program he chaired that had been launched two years earlier at the President's Summit for America's Future. During the summit, a model had been established with the goals of: (1) ensuring that no child grew up without the presence of a responsible, loving, caring adult; (2) providing safe places to learn and grow, especially during after-school hours; (3) giving children a healthy start in life; (4) preventing “digital apartheid” that would limit technology to those who could afford it; and (5) promoting community service among young people.

President Bill Clinton said: "...the baby boom generation, our generation has been derided by others and by ourselves for 30 years for being self-indulgent...and been poorly compared to the World War II generation. Well, in their youth they were required to save the world and to get us through the Depression. And we had no such challenge. But in our middle age we are being given a chance to get this country out of debt for the first time since 1835. We are being given a chance to stabilize Social Security and Medicare so that when we retire we don't have to have our hands out to our kids to support us and take away from them what they would otherwise spend on our grandchildren."

Retired Army General Colin Powell, Chairman of America's Promise (a program to promote greater investment in the health, education, and welfare of young people), said: "...what I'm doing really is a little bit like what I did as a soldier, as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and for the 35 years before that...essentially working with young people...the soldiers I used to work with faced enemies, enemies who were on top of a hill, with machine guns ready to kill them, and what I had to do is to train them for that enemy, train them for that terrible day when we might ask them to go up that hill. And what did we do, we gave them discipline, we gave them structure, we gave them resources. We led them well. And we let them know that we cared about them with all our heart and soul. Now, with America's Promise...we're doing the same thing for younger children...because the enemies they face in our society today are every bit as real, are every bit as dangerous, every bit as destructive. Drugs and crime and violence and despair, and a wondering if that dream is there for each and every one of them."

Selected Policy Positions Adopted:
(1) Supporting expansion of eligibility requirements for Welfare-to-Work; (2) calling on Congress and the Administration to address the crisis faced by farmers in the form of low commodity prices coupled with unstable international markets; (3) proposing "Enlibra," a new shared doctrine for environmental management, acknowledging the role of national standards while emphasizing the need for locally focused strategies to achieve them; (4) adopting a goal of recycling or reusing at least 50 percent of the nation's waste by the year 2010; (5) requesting adequate federal funding for coastal nonpoint pollution control programs; (6) calling for the multiyear renewal of the Work Opportunity Tax Credit, providing incentives for employers to hire, train, and retain welfare recipients; and (7) with respect to Welfare-to-Work, urging greater flexibility in the state matching requirements, expansion of current eligibility requirements, and flexibility in the types of services to be covered.