SIMI VALLEY : New Jersey Governor Urges Cuts in Taxes

Touting reforms achieved by Republican governors across the nation, New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman, in a speech Friday in Simi Valley, urged the party faithful to push for tax cuts, less government and more state sovereignty.

Whitman ducked an audience question about persistent rumors that she could be tapped to run for vice president on the GOP ticket, saying only, “I’m very happy where I am.”

In a speech at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library to a crowd of 250, including former First Lady Nancy Reagan, Whitman called for reform of the national welfare system.

She said Congress should follow examples set by welfare reforms in New Jersey, California and other states by finding new ways to deliver services to the poor that will save taxpayers money.

“People are asking, ‘Where is the compassion in pouring money into programs that have a decades-long history of failure? Where is the heart in a government that takes so much from hard-working Americans that they have to work three hours every day just to pay their taxes?

“ ‘Where is the compassion in bureaucratic overkill?’ ” she added in a 20-minute address interrupted half a dozen times by applause. “I say that the most caring government is the government that makes sure it does not take a single penny more from the people than it needs, without ignoring those in need.”

Tax cuts force governments toward efficiency and help create jobs, said Whitman, citing New Jersey’s experience. She said the state cut income taxes by 15% in 1994 and enjoyed its highest job rate growth in six years.

Whitman also called for governments to work with private companies to generate jobs and feed the economy. And she applauded Gov. Pete Wilson’s “one-stop shopping” program for permit approval as a means of cutting government waste.

Whitman’s speech Friday ended a three-day tour through Southern California, including a stop at the Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace in Yorba Linda, where she was greeted by anti-abortion protesters.

At the Reagan library on Friday, a dozen students from UCLA, University of California, Santa Barbara and Santa Monica City College wore gags to protest Whitman’s signing of a New Jersey law forbidding universities from levying non-mandatory fees on students to pay for lobbyists.

During her California tour, Whitman also met with Wilson, but they did not discuss his bid for the presidency in the 1996 election, she told reporters Friday.