Wilson Takes Plea for Funds to Washington

Spreading a gloomy economic forecast for California, Gov. Pete Wilson came to the nation’s capital Monday seeking millions of dollars in federal assistance for immigrant programs and a speedy solution to the devastation inflicted on crops by the whitefly.

The Republican governor departed from the one-day stopover with no firm commitments and a chorus of criticism from Democrats. Aides said Wilson hopes to make the hastily arranged trip the first in a regular series of meetings with federal officials to advance the state’s agenda.

Wilson spent most of the day in separate meetings with top members of the Bush Administration, beginning with White House Chief of Staff John Sununu, but had no plans to confer with congressional leaders. At a news conference he bashed Congress for requiring states to manage social programs and then failing to provide the money to fund them.

The immigration assistance program, Wilson said, serves as a prime example. As part of the 1986 federal immigration reform act, Congress committed to paying $4 billion for health care, schooling and economic assistance for immigrants who qualified for U.S. residency under the amnesty program created by the law. But the Bush Administration and Congress have cut more than $1 billion from the program, including $600 million in aid to California.

“The problem is the Congress,” Wilson said. “Frankly, there has been a welshing on that legal and moral obligation. . . . A number of people have thought that it was a slush fund available to tap in order that they could fund other pet projects.”

Democrats were all too eager to point out that a good share of the “welshing” took place in 1989 and 1990 when Wilson served as a U.S. senator. Leaders of the California Democratic congressional delegation also assailed the governor for voicing his outrage after the immigration funds were taken away.

“The governor’s visit is too late in the process to affect (immigration) funding this year,” said Rep. Leon Panetta (D-Monterey). “But he is going to the right place because it is the Administration we have had to fight to save the program.”

Wilson has been criticized recently for blaming part of the state’s fiscal crisis on the spiraling costs of providing services to the burgeoning immigrant population.

On Monday, California Democratic Party Chairman Phil Angelides said at a Washington press conference: “The governor has tried to really make immigrants the scapegoat for the budget problem. . . . Pete Wilson is a Yale-educated immigrant from Missouri. In his mind that’s OK. But the fact is California has always been a place where people came as immigrants and could work their way up.

“I hope, but I bet he didn’t, tell the President there is a recession in California, and it is a deep one and that is the problem.”

During his 30-minute meeting with Sununu, Wilson said, he discussed the impact of the recession on state programs and his forecast that California’s recovery will be a slow one. He shared with Sununu a recent state report showing that rapid increases in the state’s younger and older age groups--combined with an influx of immigrants and an exodus of middle-aged high-wage earners--spelled economic chaos for the state. This imbalance between tax receivers and taxpayers, the report said, could result in a $20-billion budget deficit by the year 2000.

In separate meetings, Wilson discussed water issues with Interior Secretary Manuel Lujan Jr., efforts to give states more flexibility in managing social programs with Health and Human Services Secretary Louis Sullivan, and federal efforts to eradicate the whitefly with Agriculture Secretary Edward Madigan.

“They are hopeful that they have found some predators, but the bad news is that it is going to take a while to produce them in a sufficient number. . . .” Wilson said.