The Battalion
Viewpoint
August 19, 1981
Conference really is
‘governors’ gamble’
By DAVID S. BRODER
ATLANTIC CITY — Those of us who
follow the annual conferences of the Na
tional Governors Association from resort to
resort are hopelessly addicted to the crea
tion of dateline parables. When the gov
ernors were in Denver last year, they were,
inevitably on a “Rocky Mountain high,” and
when they met a few years ago in Hershey,
Pa., it was all predictably “sweetness and
light.”
You get the picture.
It was, therefore, dictated in advance
that the theme of last week’s meeting in the
Resorts International casino-hotel here
would be “the governor’s gamble. ” And this
year, for a change, the cliche fit.
With fingers crossed, the governors
offered their sometime-partners in the fed
eral government a deal. You guys take over
our share of the big income-support prog
rams like Medicaid and Aid to Families
with Dependent Children, now jointly fi
nanced by the federal and state govern
ments, they said, and we will not squawk
about your dropping federal aid to educa
tion, transportation and law-enforcement.
On paper, such a deal would be good for
; the governors, because the welfare prog
rams are more costly and less popular than
the ones the states would assume. But it is
still a gamble, because the history of this
relationship is that the feds tend to give the
governors half of what they propose — the
wrong half.
A year ago, for example, the governors
adopted an “agenda for federalism” aimed
at “sorting out” the appropriate roles of fed
eral and state governments and cleaning
out the overlapping jurisdictions and re
sponsibilities.
Last January, Ronald Reagan took them
up on their invitation — but with a twist.
The governors said they could accept a 10
percent cutback in federal aid, in return for
the flexibility that would come with a switch
from narrow categorical grants to broad
block grants. Reagan immediately upped
the ante by proposing cuts averaging 25
percent on the programs ticketed for con
solidation.
The governors swallowed hard, but
stayed in the game. Their chairman, Geor
gia Governor George D. Busbee, D-Ga.,
said he knew there were worries, “but our
overall approach must be based not upon
the sum total of these concerns, but on the
great prize to be won if federalism could be
Nonetheless, Busbee, perhaps the
strongest chairman the governors have had
since ex-Governor Daniel J. Evans, R-
Wash., pushed and prodded his colleagues
to take an even bigger flyer here.
The invitation to phase out federal aid to
education, transportation and law enforce
ment will be seized eagerly by an adminis
tration searching for $60 billion more in
budget cuts in the next two years. But the
call for federalization of welfare and Medi
caid will run headlong into Reagan’s long
held personal and philosophical objections.
Busbee told me the gamble was worth
taking because “the proliferation of categor
ical grants has completely stripped the
states of discretion. They not only tie us
down on the use of their money, they lever
age the use of our own money. So I don’t see
that we have anything to lose.”
But doubts abound among other gov
ernors. The 30-5 vote approving the Big
Gamble was more a sign respect for Busbee
as the retiring chairman than an expression
of confidence that the states will collect on
their bet.
Busbee himself acknowledged the risk
when he described the intensity of the fight
he led last month to defeat an administra
tion proposal to cap federal Medicaid pay
ments. This would have shifted an increas
ing share of that largest of all cash welfare
programs from Washington to the states.
“You simply cannot save a buck by pas
sing the buck, ” Busbee said. It is a message
the governors will have to shout in unison at
Washington, if the Atlantic City gamble is
not to bankrupt them and their states.
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Forget Medflys, lace wigs are here
By DICK WEST
United Press International
WASHINGTON — If you think the
Mediterranean fruit fly is a problem, wait
till the Chinese lacewig gets a toehold in
this country.
Green lacewigs are among a batch of
Sino-insects recently brought back from
China by scientists associated the U.S.
Agricultural Research Service.
According to the Agriculture Depart
ment, the Chinese bugs “are natural ene
mies of some of the aphids and mites that
attack cotton, tobacco, vegetables, citrus
and other crops and trees in the United
States.”
The plan is to see what happens when the
twain meet under experimental conditions.
If field tests show the imported bugs help
control domestic pests, they presumably
will be introduced in volume to do their
number.
In theory, fine. The entomologists mean
well. I’m sure. “Fight bug with bug” is their
credo. But we all know how the picture is
going to end, don’t we?
Just as sure as God made little green
neuropteroids, the scenario will take this
form:
At first, the program goes along swim
mingly. Millions of Chinese insects are pro
duced in government laboratories and then
turned loose in them of cotton fields back
home.
The lacewigs quickly drive off aphids and
mites and other pests that damage cotton.
Crops proliferate. Farmers are rolling in
dough.
Now comes the pendulum’s inevitable
counter-swing.
Once all the bugs that eat cotton dis
appear, what happens to the bugs that eat
bugs that eat cotton?
I mean, here is the “back 40” cotton
patch teeming with millions of hungry
Chinese lacewigs. Does anyone seriously
believe those bugs, deprived of their natu
ral food supply, are going to sit idly around
while they waste away to mere shadows of
their former selves?
You can bet you last box of sweeh
sour jujubes they aren’t.
Those ravenous little creatures are go
to start scouting around for alternatefoi
of nourishment. And you don’t neei
Chinese fortune cookie to tell youwht
final upshot will be.
Denied their standard menu, the
wigs will turn at mealtime to some pi
that has never had bug trouble before.
What they will choose for sustenani
anybody’s guess. For hypothetical
poses let’s borrow trouble from their
Let’s postulate that the protein for
toupee glue satisfies a lacewigs cra\ii|]
Imagine Dolly Parton flouncing onto
stage of the Grand Of Opry withasw
lacewigs munching her bouffant
can envision the devastating impactsui
insect infestation would have on natif
morale.
The next step, of course, would bea
sive lacewig eradication program. I
siderating the problems we had withJIi
ly spraying, we may wish imports fromQ
na had stopped with eggrolls.
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revived.” He did say, however, at the mid
winter meeting last February, “The cuts
are totally unacceptable if flexibility and
relief from mandates do not arrive simul
taneously. We cannot have the cuts today
and the flexibility to admit to them at some
vague point in the future.”
Well, Reagan cut the cards and Congress
dealt them. And six months later, the gov
ernors had been handed all of the cuts and a
good deal less than all the flexibility. By the
administration’s count. Congress approved
57 of the 88 categorical grant consolidations
Reagan sought — some with strings. More
than 400 categoricals remain on the books.
By the governor’s count, $2.3 billion of
federal aid was freed from some restraints,
but more than $11 billion of federal aid was
cut.
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Reagan victorious at
governors’ conference
By CLAY F. RICHARDS
United Press International
WASHINGTON — The Democratic Na
tional Committee and party leaders in Con
gress seemed to have forgotten that gov
ernors are party officials too — so once
again President Reagan marched into the
void and emerged the winner.
Listening to the praise and support for
Reagan at the National Governors Associa
tion summer meting at Atlantic City made
one forget that Democrats still dominate
the governorships, holding a 27-23 edge
over Republicans.
on Medicaid costs — which meant the
states would have to pay any cost above the
cap— Busbee said no. When the governors
prevailed in Congress, the administration
shook hands with the victors and said let’s
get on with our work.
When Reagan needed votes in the
House, he went to Busbee. And Georgia
Democrats voted with Reagan on the cru
cial tax and budget cut bills. House Speaker
Thomas O’Neill, sources said, never made
the call to his fellow Democrat.
By a vote of 30-5, with Democrats join
ing Republicans in large numbers, the gov
ernors voted to forge a partnership with
Reagan to negotiate a swap. The states
would pay the entire cost of education, law
enforcement, transportation if the federal
government would pay for the “safety net”
programs like Medicaid and Welfare.
The vote continued the alliance the gov
ernors began in February when they voted
to support the Reagan budget cuts.
The deal was forged by Gov. George
Busbee of Georgia, a Democrat who waited
for a telephone call from his own party that
What the administration held out to the
Democratic governors is the promise of
block grants. Basically what they do is con
solidate all specifically mandated federal
funds into broad areas where the states
have wide authority over how the money is
spent.
Democrats in Congress don’t want block
grants, because the mandated categorical
grants have created thousands of patronage
jobs for Democrats across the nation.
So the Democrats in Congress and the
Democratic governors were at odds and
Reagan stepped in.
never came.
Throughout the year, Busbee, the out
going chairman of the governors’ confer
ence, has been courted and wooed by the
White House. In planning the budget cuts,
Busbee and other governors were con
sulted constantly on how the cuts were
made and what impact they would have on
the states.
When Reagan proposed puting a “cap”
Even liberal Democrats and Reagan foes
found it hard to oppose the administration
at Atlantic City. Take the case of Gov.
Edmund Brown of California.
Shortly before the vote on the resolution
supporting Reagan, he blasted the budget
cuts as a “shell game” that would only trans
fer financial burdens from the federal gov
ernments to the states.
Then he took off immediately for Califor
nia— rather than go on record for or against
the pro-Reagan resolution.
The Battalion
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