Making Their Records

Goldwater and Rockefeller remain the names most frequently mentioned in talk about the 1964 Republican presidential nomination. But if both Barry and Rocky were to falter, the most likely G.O.P. choice would be either Pennsylvania's Governor William Scranton or Michigan's Governor George Romney. Both took office last January, replacing Democratic governors in key states with staggering economic problems. How each has met those problems may yet dictate the choice of next year's G.O.P. nominee. An interim report on their gubernatorial records:

Pennsylvania's Scranton took office with state unemployment at a horrendous 9.4%. He was presented by outgoing Democrat David Lawrence with a budget carrying a $53 million deficit --and, because of already-authorized new spending projects, holding the red ink even to that amount required raising $175 million more than state tax revenues brought in the previous year.

Moreover, of some 80,000 state employees, about 60,000 held no civil service job tenure, were subject to the will and whim of Pennsylvania's notoriously patronage-minded politicians. Teachers' salaries were abysmally low, and highway construction was behind schedule.

Scranton, 46, went right to work, paring projected state financial obligations by $90 million. But even that would have left a total deficit of about $138 million. To raise the needed revenue, Scranton last April went before the legislature, asked for a hefty increase in the general sales tax, along with hiked cigarette and liquor taxes.

By numbers, Republicans controlled the Pennsylvania House 109 to 101, the Senate by 27 to 23. But there was'bitter factionalism within the ranks of the G.O.P. legislators. It took Scranton more than a month of hard-nosed, behind-the-scenes persuasion before the legislature passed a bill that raised the sales tax from 4% to 5%. Scranton can now lay claim to a balanced budget --a feat that had been considered impossible only a few months before.

He also tackled Pennsylvania's patronage mess. He wanted more than 50,000 state employees put under civil service regulations that would place them safely beyond the reach of pork-barreling politicians. Again, Scranton pushed his proposals through a reluctant legislature.

He next won legislative approval of many more controversial proposals: $35 million to raise school subsidies, the bulk to go for higher teachers' salaries; $12.4 million for loans to struggling new and staggering old industries that could bolster the state's economy; new tax breaks for industry; $262 million for the state's highway building program; election reforms.

Under his administration, Pennsylvania's unemployment rate dropped steadily all year, was down to 6.5% in August. He pitched into a hard-hitting national advertising campaign that promised new Pennsylvania industries ''100% plant financing, a state-aided job-training program, a favorable tax climate." Since Scranton took office, 121 companies have announced that they will build new plants in Pennsylvania, another 138 have said that they plan to expand.

Last week, back from a hard-earned vacation, Scranton returned to his arduous statehouse job. He met with his Industrial Development Advisory Committee, cut a ribbon to open a new highway, read a batch of ceremonial proclamations every day, took a thick sheaf of paper work home every night. He still insisted that he had no presidential ambitions--but, as some of his admirers recalled, he had to be drafted to run for Governor.

Michigan's Romney took office in a near-bankrupt state with a debt of $85.6 million. Romney received from defeated Democratic Governor John Swainson an estimate of a budget surplus of about $11 million for this fiscal year. Judging from the past, that estimate seemed optimistic--and Romney could not have been blamed if more red ink had been splashed on Michigan's ledgers.

But Romney hit it lucky. A national boom in auto sales, upon which so much of Michigan's economy depends, spurted tax revenues beyond anyone's wildest dreams. As of June, Michigan had a $62.6 million budget surplus. Romney applied it to reducing the state debt. Looking ahead, his aides predicted that by next June Romney could cut Michigan's state debt to a piddling $5,000,000. Romney was the first to admit that as Governor he had had little to do with the boom. He was happy to say that Michigan was simply basking "in a financial sun."

During his first session with a legislature dominated by conservatives who are definitely not of his "Citizens for Michigan" stripe, Romney scored well: he got a controversial revision of unemployment compensation rates; he won authorization for a new, 100,000-seat stadium, in the hope that Detroit will get the 1968 Olympic games; he pushed through a congressional redistricting plan--after dozens of others had been turned down over the past three years. Most impressive, was the slim victory he engineered in April for a new state constitution.

But Romney's toughest tests are yet to come. Despite Michigan's present appearance of prosperity, the state's tax structure is as antiquated as Methuselah. State revenues depend on a crazy quilt of taxes: a 4% sales tax on assorted items ranging from food to shoes to medicines; a "business activities tax" based on a firm's gross dollar volume rather than on net profits; excise taxes on liquor, telephone bills, cigarettes, beer, and motel rooms.

Michigan has no individual income tax or corporate income tax per se--and to Romney's way of thinking, the state must have these if it is ever to get on a permanent, sound financial footing.

During the Michigan legislature's regular 1963 session, Romney deliberately refrained from demanding such tax-structure revisions. He was convinced that he would be defeated if he forced the issue then. But since the April adjournment, he has entertained both Republican and Democratic leaders at his summer home on Mackinac Island, made 16 public appearances around the state to urge his ideas upon voters.

Romney then vacationed briefly in Europe last month, took his grandchildren to the Michigan State Fair last week, then faced his crisis again by calling a special legislative session for this week. The main aim would be to approve Romney's proposals for state fiscal reform. If that aim is achieved, George Romney will be riding high. If it fails, he may have to wait a few years before he can be considered a proper presidential possibility.

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