Excerpts From the Speech

Highlights from Gov. Pete Wilson’s State of the State address:

PROMISCUITY

Most important of all, we’ve got to end the vicious cycle of promiscuity and irresponsibility that produces generation after generation of children giving birth to children. Every baby deserves a mother and a father. In 1945, one in 25 children nationwide were born out of wedlock.

Today, the figure is almost one in three. In some neighborhoods, four out of every five children are born to an unwed mother. The consequences, for them and for us, are devastating. Children of unwed mothers are overwhelmingly more likely to drop out of school, to abuse drugs, to land in jail, to have their own children out of wedlock and to become trapped in welfare dependency.

MENTORS

But too many children don’t have that strong and caring adult in their lives. That’s why I attach such importance to the California Mentor Initiative, which has brought together business and civic leaders from throughout the state.

We’ve set an ambitious goal: to provide mentors for 1 million kids in the next four years. Our challenge as a society is nothing less than recasting and reinvigorating our culture.

We’ve got to persuade California’s children that a baby is an awesome responsibility. Your baby is your responsibility--not the taxpayers’!

That means that education and marriage must come first, before you have children. If you don’t want a child or won’t love a child, don’t get pregnant. If you want a child but are not prepared to be a parent, don’t get pregnant. If you will have no father for your child, don’t get pregnant.

WELFARE

The states are far more capable than Washington of fixing what’s wrong with welfare.

In the past five years, California has saved taxpayers $9 billion, ended the incentive for having more children while on welfare and doubled the number of welfare recipients at work. The greatest rewards from our efforts, though, are the individuals now leading lives of independence and self-sufficiency. . . . We simply can’t let another generation grow up thinking welfare is an acceptable career choice.

A 10-year-old in Sacramento’s Castori Elementary School was asked by his principal what career he wanted when he grew up. He said, “Welfare. Just like my mother and my grandfather.”

Instead of welfare, we’ll offer able-bodied adults our new Ready-to-Work program. It’ll offer temporary help to those in need--to the mother fleeing from an abusive home or the family that loses a major breadwinner through death, divorce or abandonment.

But the goal will be helping people to find work--not letting them sit around watching filmstrips about work, but actually doing it--to learn the dignity and self-esteem that goes with seeing their name on a paycheck they earned. . . . No one who can do any honest work has a right to live off the sweat of others.

TAXES

I propose that we leave some of the surplus revenue created by this economic recovery with the people who earned it. Let’s cut taxes 15% across the board for every taxpayer in our state. Let’s let the families who earned this money, not government, decide how it can best be spent.

Instead of letting state government grow, let’s give small businesses the chance to grow--to reinvest that money to create still more jobs and still greater revenues. A tax cut will force state government to fundamentally rethink how it spends every dollar it collects from the taxpayers. We must ask whether each program or service is worth continuing; and if so, who can provide the best quality at the lowest cost.

STUDENTS IN FAILING SCHOOLS

California has some outstanding schools. But there are too many that are failing to provide our kids the education they deserve and need. No child should be trapped in these failing schools because their parents can’t afford an alternative. So I propose a pilot program to offer opportunity scholarships to families of kids attending our lowest-achieving schools.

SINGLE-SEX SCHOOLS

Some cities around the nation have found success with all-male classrooms for at-risk boys. There, strong male teachers serve as an alternative to gang leaders. So I propose establishing all-male empowerment academies as magnet schools.

There boys can find the discipline and role models they’ll need to escape a life on the streets. In the same way, young girls and their parents should have the option of all-female schools.

I’d especially like to see such a school offer girls the opportunity to concentrate on math and science. I, for one, want the very best education possible for our future pilots, our future bridge-builders, and especially our future throat surgeons.

CRIME

How can we even call ourselves a civilized society, when 3-year-old Stephanie Kuhen is killed in a hail of gunfire simply because her family station wagon took a wrong turn onto a street claimed by a gang?

Tough new laws will help, but only if they’re enforced. We need more cops on the street. In Los Angeles County alone, gang members outnumber police officers by more than six to one.

So let’s give Californians a little direct democracy and the chance to make public safety a top priority. I propose that we provide a box on our state income tax returns that taxpayers can check. It won’t add to their tax burden. It will redirect 1% of their income taxes to directly aid local law enforcement in their own community. We’ll call it the “Citizens’ Option for Public Safety,” or simply COPS.

GANGS

Gang members must know that there will be stern consequences for their actions--even if they are minors. All too many of California’s most vicious criminals embarked upon their ugly careers as teenagers. Yet our juvenile justice system remains dangerously lenient. It lets a teen thug break the law four, five, even six times, and escape with little more than a lecture. It needs a total overhaul.

We must hold these kids accountable for their actions, with punishment that’s swift and certain on the first offense. Those 14 or older who commit serious adult crimes must know they’ll do serious adult time.

That means being transferred to adult prison when they turn 18--not remaining in the relative comfort of the youth authority, and not being released at age 25.

And we should expand the curfews that have proven so effective at keeping kids off the street and out of trouble. San Diego’s curfew helped cut violent teenage crime by nearly a third. Of course, no good deed goes unpunished. San Diego’s now being sued for that success by the ACLU.

If anyone ought to be sued, it’s the ACLU for defying common sense.