WASHINGTON -- The failure of the nation's governors to reach sufficient agreement during their winter meeting here on how to reform welfare does not augur well for the prospects of an early resolution of the matter in Congress.
It is true that the rules of the National Governors Association require 75 percent approval of the members to set policy for the group on any specific issue. That is a very high hurdle that does not have to be cleared in the House, where only a majority is required, or in the Senate, where two-thirds suffices to overcome a filibuster.
But the same difference exists between Republicans and Democrats in Congress that prevented the 30 Republican governors from winning approval of their proposal to take over the welfare burden with federal block grants to the states with "maximum flexibility" in their use.
The basic concern of most of the 20 Democratic governors about the block-grant approach is that it risks loss of money to the states as the federal government seeks to balance its own budget, and in the end could leave many welfare recipients in the cold. They want welfare to continue as an individual entitlement to these recipients, which would require the feds to maintain sufficient payments to the states to provide for them.
Many Democrats in Congress, and especially in the Senate, share this concern. Democratic Sen. John Breaux of Louisiana, advising the nation's governors here the other day of the pitfalls of rushing pell-mell to take over the nation's public welfare burden, warned them that Congress' turning it over to the states would be "sort of putting the problem in a box and mailing it to you all." If Congress does that, Breaux told them, it might well mail it to them "empty" -- that is, without enough block-grant money to pay for it.
Breaux cited a Treasury Department estimate of what each state would lose in Medicaid, Aid for Dependent Children and other welfare programs if Congress passed the balanced budget amendment sought by the Republicans and already passed in the House. Assuming Social Security would not be cut, Breaux said, balancing the federal budget would cost his own state of Louisiana about $2 billion in federal aid for welfare, and would oblige the state to raise taxes by nearly 28 percent to make up the shortfall.
Breaux urged each governor to check the Treasury report on what his state would lose. If the balanced budget amendment is passed and approved by the states, he warned, "it's important to know we're going to be shooting with real bullets" in Congress to comply with that new constitutional mandate.
While he was at it, Breaux made another pitch for the Democratic argument that Republicans should be obliged to spell out what cuts they have in mind if the balanced budget amendment is approved. He'd be "very worried as a governor," he said, if that happened without knowing how his state would be hit.
Other Democrats, including Gov. Howard Dean of Vermont, who chaired the governors' meeting, emphasized his party's concern that children would be the prime victims if the individual entitlement approach were dropped. Republican Rep. Clay Shaw of Florida, chairman of the House Ways and Means subcommittee that will handle welfare reform, said with some indignation that Congress would not let that happen. "Congress will react," he said. "We are not going to let babies starve."
In warning during the midterm election campaign of the Republicans' drive for a balanced budget amendment, Democrats tried to play on fears of the elderly that its approval would mean deep cuts in Social Security. The tactic didn't work. Whether raising fears that children will be hurt by Republican welfare reform will be more effective now is questionable, considering the hard-nosed climate generally for reducing welfare.
All these matters laid before the governors during their winter meeting will be heard again as Congress grapples with reform. The governors' hopes of entering the debate with a solid bipartisan front fell short because of traditional party differences on welfare, and the same is likely to happen on Capitol Hill, where the same differences also survive.