Governor Tells Vision for State’s Future : Better Quality of Life Without Major Tax Spending Seen for 2010

Gov. George Deukmejian on Wednesday outlined what he called an “achievable vision” for the state through the year 2010, declaring that if Californians “rest on their laurels, we will lose our leadership.”

The governor said he envisions a California where per capita annual wages will rise by more than $9,000, where projections of the number of people living below the poverty line will shrink by a third, where literacy and air quality will improve and where the average commute to and from work will be cut in half.

And Deukmejian strongly implied that all this could be done without massive government subsidies or major tax increases, basically by making “wiser investments” of government resources.

‘Second to None’

“Our mission, quite simply, is to ensure that California in the year 2010 offers its residents a standard of living and quality of life that is second to none in the nation and the world,” Deukmejian said in a speech to the California Chamber of Commerce.

Deukmejian’s ambitious plan--which he insisted was “not a pie-in-the-sky vision”--is based on a yearlong study released Wednesday by a group of prominent business leaders to coincide with the governor’s speech. Deukmejian requested the report shortly after his landslide 1986 reelection victory, to help him craft a major policy statement on California’s future.

What he got is largely a business wish list, which recommends that government give more work to private firms, that it deregulate private utilities, consider economic consequences when imposing environmental controls and make it more difficult to win liability lawsuits against businesses.

The report also suggests that parents be given a greater role in choosing among public and private schools for their children, that colleges place more emphasis on science and engineering courses and that more money be provided for industry-sponsored university research projects.

Flexible Position

The governor’s cautious handling of these proposals was vintage Deukmejian. He directed members of his cabinet and state department heads to “develop detailed action plans” based on the report, but left himself plenty of wiggle room should any of the recommendations spark significant controversy.

“While I do not necessarily endorse each action proposed in the report,” Deukmejian said, “I share with great enthusiasm the goals of its achievable vision.”

One recommendation that is unlikely to find much gubernatorial support is the report’s call for a loosening of the state’s voter-approved constitutional spending limit. Deukmejian has been a strong supporter of the 1979 ballot measure, authored by anti-tax crusader Paul Gann, which placed a lid on how much state and local government agencies can spend regardless of the amount of tax money they collect.

The report projects that if the current limitations are unchanged for the next 25 years, economic activity in California will fall by one-fourth. “The growing demand for more funding for health care, prisons and schools--whose user populations are growing more rapidly than the general population--suggests the current limit may be too restrictive,” the report says.

Issue for the Voters

The state reached its spending limit last year for the first time, prompting the Legislature to agree to a one-time tax rebate. Two initiatives to change the spending limit have been placed on the June primary election ballot.

In his speech, Deukmejian put much of his emphasis on the need to do something about the state’s traffic-choked freeways and streets. But the governor, who has proposed that the state borrow $2.3 billion to pay for traffic improvements, emphasized that he will not support higher gasoline taxes as a solution to the problem.

Instead, he said, businesses should schedule deliveries during off-peak traffic periods and encourage employees to car pool or use public transit. He also suggested conversion of abandoned railroad rights-of-way to special truck lanes and incentives including lower license fees for those who stay off freeways during peak hours.