CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS: GOVERNOR : Wilson Offers Sweeping View of State’s Future

Sen. Pete Wilson on Saturday painted a sweeping vision of California in the 1990s under his leadership if elected governor in November: a state of boundless opportunity and a cleansed environment peopled by well-educated, healthy residents who are freed of the fear of drugs and crime and who pursue aspirations “that reach higher than Mt. Shasta.”

The Republican nominee’s address to California newspaper editors contained no direct criticism of the leadership the last 7 1/2 years under his fellow Republican, Gov. George Deukmejian. Wilson generally supported the governor’s tough stand against the Democratic-controlled Legislature over the current budget impasse.

But in response to a question about how to manage the state’s phenomenal growth, Wilson said: “There is a great unhappiness in California, a great yearning for an earlier, simpler time. But the quality of life, I think, does not depend entirely upon numbers. It depends upon what you do to anticipate and accommodate growth.”

One thing that will control growth in California is a deterioration of the quality of life, said Wilson, who faces Democrat Dianne Feinstein, the former mayor of San Francisco, in the Nov. 6 general election. But so, too, will a dampening of the economic climate if major employers move and small businesses are forced to close, Wilson said.

Thus, he said, he would have to engage in a delicate balancing act with the Legislature, expected to remain in Democratic control, to develop revenue for the programs he is advocating without imposing the sort of taxes that would hurt the economy in general and job-generating small businesses in particular.

In his prepared address to the California Society of Newspaper Editors, Wilson said he is seeking to “bring important and needed change to California.” He mentioned the benefits of several ballot propositions approved in the June primary, including Proposition 111, the gasoline tax increase that will finance an $18.5-billion transportation improvement program.

“But there is much, much more to be done before we complete the job of needed change,” Wilson added.

Then he recited the items, talking about familiar themes such as being tough on drug pushers and supportive of crime victims, but also promoting programs with a decidedly progressive cast. Wilson again proposed consolidation of diverse programs into a state Environmental Protection Agency and called for the creation of a state Cabinet position of secretary of child development.

Wilson put special emphasis on the importance of prenatal health care and the short-term and long-term savings that can be achieved from the delivery of healthy babies.

“In my judgment, the most significant, most prudent and most civilized investment we can make . . . is to assure that every woman in California who does not now receive it, gets the kind of prenatal care that in fact will avoid the sort of learning disabilities that too often make for high school dropouts.”

Many poor California women receive inadequate prenatal care, or none at all, because large numbers of obstetricians and pediatricians refuse to participate in the Medi-Cal program of health care for the needy. The doctors claim that the shortage of Medi-Cal funds in Deukmejian budgets has made it impossible for the state to compensate them for the costs of providing such care.

Asked how he would finance expanded prenatal care, Wilson said that money should be available next year from Proposition 99, the 1988 tobacco tax health care initiative, or in new revenues that can be collected under the relaxation of the Gann spending limit that was contained in Proposition 111.

He said the cost would be offset many times by the savings resulting from the elimination of the need for hospitalization of infants because the mothers did not receive adequate treatment before birth. The savings would continue to accumulate because infants who are properly cared for will not need such costly services as compensatory education and treatment for mental and developmental disabilities, Wilson said.

Wilson supported Deukmejian as being “on the right track” in the present budget battle in trying to curb automatic cost-of-living increases in state entitlement programs. But he added that “the last thing we should do” is deny the cost-of-living increases to welfare recipients in the special categories of the aged, blind and disabled.

Feinstein at one time had committed to appearing before the editors Saturday, but later said she could not make the meeting because she would attend her stepdaughter’s graduation from Stanford University. Wilson chided Feinstein: “She ought to remember Woody Allen’s famous line: ‘80% of life is just showing up.’ ”