Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, July 30, 1990 TAG: 9007300049
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: MOBILE, ALA. LENGTH: Medium
The group's executive committee voted to send the governors a resolution to investigate the S&L bailout and find a way for "equitable recovery" of taxpayer money spent on the bailout.
The action came on a busy opening day of the governors' annual summer conference, which concludes Tuesday.
Michigan Gov. James Blanchard, a Democrat, predicted Congress and President Bush would ignore the S&L request, directed at them.
However he said the statement amounted to "a vote of no-confidence in federal action" on the S&L bailout.
Gov. Douglas Wilder of Virginia was one of those pushing the resolution on S&Ls. He said he was not trying to attack the Bush administration but wanted the commission to act "without any desire to protect the reputation of those responsible."
"It's not a witch hunt that I'm interested in," he said before the governors met. "The question is how did we get in this quagmire," he said.
The vote came after the governors divided in a partisan dispute on education - a subject on which they previously had voiced only consensus - before tentatively agreeing on the makeup of a panel that would grade states on their progress in education.
At the insistence of Democrats, they added a provision that the panel also vote on the federal government's progress toward meeting education goals.
Democrats, concerned that they not give up a political advantage to the White House and Republicans, forced cancellation of a bipartisan task force meeting on education reforms while they met alone.
They met later in private with GOP colleagues and White House officials and announced a tentative agreement, but not before Republican Gov. Carroll Campbell of South Carolina, who is co-chairman of the governors' bipartisan task force on education reform, blasted the Democrats. He said they were disrupting consensus and trying "to polarize this."
"If partisanship is more important than education, then I'll let them defend that," Campbell said.
White House chief of staff John Sununu, a former chairman of the governors' association, defended President Bush's budget before the governors and said Bush would insist on fundamental budget reform as part of any deficit-reduction package.
Sununu was politely received and only gently questioned about the Bush administration's latest proposal to raise revenues by limiting the deduction for state income taxes by federal taxpayers.
The governors have written the administration opposing the elimination of state tax deductibility, saying it would increase pressure on the states to limit or roll back taxes.
The dispute over the education panel marked the first time in recent years that the governors have voiced anything other than bipartisan agreement on the issues they debate.
Clinton, co-chairman of the education panel, said the dispute was resolved with a plan to put on the panel six governors, three from each party; four Bush administration officials; and two members of Congress from each party, who would have no voting power.
by CNB