Paul Gann Enters Fray on Gas Tax, Budget Limit

Anti-tax crusader Paul Gann Wednesday said he will fight the plan unveiled by Gov. George Deukmejian to place before the voters a proposal to raise the gasoline tax and repeal the government spending limit that Gann conceived in 1979.

Even though he is a strong supporter of Deukmejian and a fellow Republican, Gann said he will fight the proposal to put on the November ballot a measure to raise the gasoline tax by 9 cents a gallon and revise the expenditure limit to allow the increased revenue to be spent.

The limit, Gann told reporters testily, has “worked more than adequately” and “should remain to function as the voters intended it to.”

‘Alive and Kicking’

Appearing healthier than he has since doctors discovered in 1987 that he was infected with the AIDS virus, Gann told reporters to “tell people I’m alive and kicking” and lashed out at critics who have dared suggest that the spending limit has outlived its usefulness.

“Why don’t they tell the taxpayer out there, if they are going to remove the spending limit completely, where the extra (money) will come from?” Gann asked. “You and I both know where they’ll get the money. They will pick it out of the wallets of the working people of the state of California.”

The 76-year-old Gann, besides sponsoring the spending limit initiative, co-authored the revolutionary Proposition 13 that in 1978 slashed property taxes and radically altered government in California.

At the news conference, Gann, who has tested positive for the AIDS virus but has not been formally diagnosed with the disease itself, said his weight, which at one point had plummeted to 116 pounds, is back up to 152. He credited his good health to his faith in God, weekly Vitamin B-12 shots and a daily dose of 3,000 milligrams of Vitamin C.

His doctor, he said, offered a different explanation: “He said, ‘If I had to say what keeps you alive, it’s this fight you are in with the bureaucracy all the time.’ ”

As for the gasoline tax question, Gann acknowledged that the state must come up with money to finance the deficit-plagued state highway system. Last year, in fact, he sponsored an initiative that would have shifted all revenues raised by the sales tax on gasoline into highway programs, but it was rejected by voters. Gann noted that last year’s initiative differs from the proposal now in that it would have shifted existing taxes, not raised them.

Gasoline Tax

The plan unveiled last week by the governor calls for a measure to be put before voters that would raise the gasoline tax 9 cents a gallon, beginning with an immediate 5-cent boost, then increasing by 1 cent per year for four years. Accompanying the proposal on the ballot would be a measure to raise the spending limit in order to allow for revenues raised by the tax to go into transportation programs.

The spending ceiling, commonly called the Gann Limit because it is so closely identified with the anti-tax crusader, restricts the state’s annual budget growth to a rate tied to inflation and population increases.

Deukmejian, who had long defended the limit, altered his position last year when voters approved Propositions 98 and 99. Proposition 98, the landmark school funding measure, changed the Gann Limit to give public schools and community colleges the bulk of future budget surpluses. Proposition 99 placed hefty new taxes on cigarettes and tobacco products and provided that the new money be free of Gann Limit controls.

Limit Denounced

Many other state officials have publicly denounced the limit.

In Wednesday’s rebuttal, Gann noted that in the last seven years, the state budget has just about doubled, going from $24 billion to $47.8 billion, despite the limit. “How can it have held anybody back?” he asked.

Then, in his folksiest manner, he added: “I said, ‘Dear Lord, are you saying to me that without the spending limit (budget growth) would have been greater than that?’ The voice came back and said, ‘Yeah, it would.’ And I said, ‘Then, thank you, Lord, for the spending limit.’ ”