GOVERNORS TUSSLE OVER WELFARE REFORM PROPOSAL

The GOP welfare reform proposal announced last Friday is causing an uproar in the National Governors Association. Vermont Governor Howard Dean, the Democratic chairman of the NGA, today lashed out at Republican members for making a deal with the Congressional members of their own party on welfare reform. The GOP proposal would cut several federal programs and give cash directly to states. Stephanie Carter, a Dean spokeswoman, told TIME Daily that Dean objected most strenuously to the fact that the Republican delegation had "signed off on a platform separate and on its own." A spokesman for the Democratic Governors Association agreed: "The traditional bipartisanship of the NGA is breaking down," said Doug Richardson of the DGA. On the Republican side, though, a spokesman for Tommy Thompson, Republican of Wisconsin and vice chair of the NGA, says the Democrats are just plain jealous. "It's just the way that the game is right now," Kevin Keane told TIME Daily. "The Republicans are in charge."