Phil Angelides Proposes California Tomorrow Fellowships

I'm here today to talk about California's economic future - to talk about the steps we must take, and the investments we must make, to stay competitive in this global economic age.

I worked in the private sector for a great many years before I was elected Treasurer. So I know as well as you: the job of government is to create the conditions for growth - to make sure the infrastructure and the workforce are there - so that you can be the real engines of innovation and job creation.  Government lays the foundation; you're the ones who build on it.

Now, there's a great myth that's evolved over the years that Republicans are far better at doing that than Democrats.

But I submit to you today: there is one truly pro-business, pro-growth candidate running for Governor of California - and it is not the incumbent.

There is one candidate in this race whose idea of entrepreneurship isn't back-room deals, corporate goodie-bags, and loopholes big enough for a mainframe computer, but rather hard work and initiative - and it's not the incumbent.

There is one candidate determined to balance this state's budget and curb the runaway debt that's crushing our ability to invest in our people and our communities - and it's not the incumbent.

There is one candidate who's had an unwavering commitment to invest in education and infrastructure and alternative energy, and not to cut them, or flip-flop around the edges in an election year - and it's not the incumbent.

There is one candidate who wants to tear down market-distorting tax loopholes, and clear that path for true, free-market competition - and it's sure not the incumbent.

If you want more of the Schwarzenegger agenda of debt and diminished opportunity - if you're really happy with the cronyism, the corporate bail-outs masquerading as pro-business policy - then maybe this movie deserves a sequel.

But if you think we need a serious change of course, to restore growth, and opportunity, and the California dream again - if you think science and technology ought to be a priority in Sacramento, and not a budgetary afterthought -- if you think we build a better economy not by coddling lobbyists but by giving a chance to everyone who's willing to work for it -- I'm Phil Angelides, and I'm running for Governor of the State of California.

Like so many of you, I come from a family of immigrants; they came here to make a better life, with little more than their own sweat and toil. My grandparents were Greek immigrants; my grandmother never really learned English. She worked as a seamstress - long hours, into the night -- so my dad could go to college.  He went to the University of California at Berkeley, and became an engineer. 

Now, this was back when windows were something you washed, and chips were something you ate.  My dad's an old-school, bricks-and-mortar engineer.  And with his free, public education, he helped build this state in the great public works boom of the 50's and 60's.

He didn't have a lobbyist working for him in the Capitol; he didn't have so much as a college degree in his gene pool. California gave him a hand up - and he literally built the future.

Needless to say, it's a new economic age.  It's said that the entire store of human knowledge now doubles every five years.

Even more than in my time, or my dad's time, today's prosperity runs on ideas - the best technology for splicing a gene, the smartest fusion of biotech, math, and computing; the boldest ways to bring music and video into the palms of our hands.

This, to me, is the fallacy of Schwarzenegger-nomics - that we can ever fulfill our economic potential while disregarding our human capital.  That we can ever move into the future while shortchanging the very idea of scientific research, let along cutting it.  We have to get serious about investing in our people, in their brainpower, and not just lavishing more on those who have the most.

We're 48th out of the 50 states in educational achievement - and this Governor has tried time and again to cut education.  Does anyone think that's good for business?

One in five children in this state now grow up in poverty.  Does anyone really believe that's getting the most from our economic assets?

Six million Californians can't afford health care, and have to crowd into expensive emergency rooms for treatment.  Is that a cost-effective way to provide care?

We've racked up billions of dollars in debt, burdening our children for years to come.   I ask you: is that any kind of platform for private investment and growth?

We're the wealthiest state in the richest nation in human history, with the 6th largest economy in the world, dwarfing most nations.

We can do better.  And come November 7th I intend to put California back on the march again.

As many of you know, I stood up to this Governor, even when his approval ratings were as high as his box-office receipts.  I've even been called the “anti-Arnold.”  And if you have doubts about the differences - just look at this body.  All natural, God-given, no steroids.  The way it ought to be. 

But the fact is, I have a far different economic vision as well.

I believe there's a high road to prosperity - where we have the most livable communities, the cleanest environment, and the best-educated workers in the world, so we can compete for and win the high-wage jobs of the future, jobs we can't even imagine today.

Because, let's face it: we can never win a race to the bottom.  If companies want cheap, uneducated labor - if they want 18-hour workdays without pensions or health care -- they'll always find it cheaper in Indonesia or Malaysia anyway.

And if it was really smart economics to just prop up the most powerful companies, without regard to the needs of the marketplace - well then we'd still be living in the Gilded Age.

The most forward-looking companies and entrepreneurs know this.  Sure, a quick tax break or a back-room windfall may lead to more black ink on a quarterly report. But they don't lead to true, investment-led growth, the kind that you can sustain over time.

That's why, unlike Governor Schwarzenegger, I don't believe in a Charles Darwin fiscal policy, and a Marie Antoinette tax policy.  I don't believe a great state's economy should be a race to the bottom, where we reward quick profiteering at the expense of long-term growth and opportunity.

As State Treasurer, I led this state to invest in our neglected communities - because we'll never achieve our full potential if millions are left behind.

I pushed the State to invest in technologies that clean up the environment and combat global warming - an estimated 400-billion-dollar global market - so we can be the State that sells them to the world, creating untold tens of thousands of jobs.

I've worked to take billions in state-owned real estate - property that's been grossly mismanaged - and simply by running it more intelligently, bring in new money for higher education.

I've fought to fully fund our schools and colleges, because that, too, is an investment -- in the most precious form of capital we can ever have, our human potential.

And I've done all these things with nine percent fewer employees than the day I took office.

America and California rose to greatness because we gave our people more chances, not fewer. We made sure every young person who wanted to go to college had a chance, regardless of their means.  We made sure more and more Americans could own their own homes.  We believed that the promise of America was a birthright of the many, not a privilege of the few.

I'm running for Governor to put California's government back on the side of hard working families and businesses; to do what's right for the whole state's economy, and not just a handful of powerful special interests.

Instead of turning Sacramento into an all-you-can-eat special interest buffet, I will stand with the innovators and small business people who are building our future. 

Instead of standing with the old-economy polluters, I'll mount an aggressive Clean California plan to reduce our state's gas and diesel use by one-quarter over the next decade - making us the leader in alternative energy and smart growth.

Instead of slashing education, I'll be a Governor who protects it, and makes pre-school available for every four-year old in California.

And my first act as Governor will be to roll back this Governor's increases in college tuition and fees.  I'll increase financial aid for middle class families, and double the number of high school counselors -- so kids are prepared for college, and so we put college within the reach of every California family once again.

Today, I am announcing a further, critical step that I will take as Governor.

It's unacceptable that America has fallen to 20th in the share of young people who earn degrees in the sciences, and that California's doing worse than the nation as a whole.

Think about it - here in the global capital of research and discovery, we should be leading but we're lagging behind.

And while President Bush cuts billions from the student loan program and turns his back on science, Governor Schwarzenegger has been moving California in the wrong direction as well.  He cut research funding at the University of California.  He raised the cost of a UC undergraduate degree by nearly 5,000 dollars - and jacked up fees for graduate students by a third.

This Governor not only tried to eliminate every dime - every single dime -- that helps disadvantaged kids prepare for college, he broke a 40-year-old covenant in this State, by telling 22,000 kids who'd made all the grades: there's no room for you at our colleges and universities. 

That's the wrong direction for California, and for the nation.  I want to take us in the right direction.

That means a bold new commitment to science education, so we can usher in the next great wave of path-breaking discovery.  As Governor, I will create 10,000 new California Tomorrow Fellowships - giving talented young people up to 10,000 dollars to study and pursue science, math, and engineering.

I'll set an important State goal: we must increase by 50 percent the number of bachelor's degrees in the sciences.   And I'll do this by challenging the private and philanthropic sectors - leaders like the ones in this room - to match 50 million dollars in State funds, a true public-private partnership for innovation and job creation.

We've got to lead the world in science, and not settle for drift and decline.

I'll be candid: to make the right kind of investments - to make them within a budget that's fully balanced, line by line and dime by dime - to correct the distortions and unfairness of the Schwarzenegger years - it may require some sacrifice from those who have the most.  But if we don't make the right choices today, the hard choices - we'll never build the economy we all seek for tomorrow.

You might call this approach trickle-up - making sure our people are equipped to make the most of this new innovation-driven economy;

Making sure government is leading us into the industries and technologies of the future, and not protecting the perks of the past;

Building an economic strategy on individual initiative, not interest-group favoritism.

That's the kind of economic strategy I would have wanted in my years in the private sector - and I know it's the one that will share the fruits of enterprise with everyone who works for it.
 
So I ask you to work with me, for a California that serves the many, and not just the few;

I ask you to join with me, for a California future as bold and bountiful as our potential;

I ask you to lead with me, for a California that continues to lead the world in ideas and innovation.

Thank you all - God bless you - and let's keep the faith.