Renewing the Promise of California

Friends, fellow Californians:

I'm here today to talk about the promise of California.

I'm here to talk about the commitments that are at the heart of the California dream - that if you work hard and play by the rules, you can build a better life for yourselves and for your children. That if we invest in our common future, and widen the circle of opportunity to all our people, then all of us prosper.

I'm running for Governor because that dream is in jeopardy.

I'm running for Governor because hard-working middle-class families are working longer for less - caught in a never-ending obstacle course of stagnant salaries, soaring gas prices, higher tuition for their kids, and higher health care costs if they can afford health care at all.

It's not that everyone's lagging behind. Tax rates for the wealthiest families and for big corporations have fallen. The size of the lobbying industry has literally doubled, and special-interest influence - in George Bush's Washington, and in Arnold Schwarzenegger's Sacramento - is at an all-time high.

That's why we need a Governor who will restore the promise of middle-class opportunity, instead of selling it off to the highest special-interest bidder. A Governor who will put hard-working families first, and build our common future again.

For me, these aren't academic issues. I'm a child of immigrants. A husband and father of three daughters. Someone who relied on student loans, financial aid, and work-study to get through college after my father was laid off from his job. Someone who built a successful business from the ground up.

I come from middle-class California. So I know first-hand: California rose to greatness because we gave hard-working families more chances, not fewer. We made sure every young person who wanted to go to college had a chance, regardless of means. We gave tax breaks to those living paycheck to paycheck, not those who could put ten lobbyists on their payroll. We believed the promise of California was a birthright of the many, not a privilege of the few.

I ask you to look across this state today - to look at what's happened under the short tenure of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger:

Deficits as far as the eye can see;

Cuts in public education, at a time of lagging student achievement;

College tuition and fees that are as much as 5,000 dollars higher - at a time when we need more educated young people to compete in the global economy, not fewer.

Then there are the things that didn't happen. A common-sense minimum wage increase - vetoed twice. Health care for all children - vetoed. Affordable health coverage for one million more working families, at a time when health care costs are up nearly 50 percent - blocked and ultimately killed.

Governor Schwarzenegger swept into office with euphoric pledges of reform. Instead, he's left us with a trail of broken promises, and an agenda that is little more than a special-interest shopping list.

Friends, I believe in my heart that California is still the home of hope, the frontier of opportunity. We're the richest state in the wealthiest nation in human history - with an economy that dwarves most nations.

We can keep traveling down the low road of trickle-down travesty - where we lavish more on the special interests, pile more debt on our children, and carve more out of education, health care, and pensions, the staples of middle-class existence;

Or we can choose the high road to prosperity and opportunity. We can rein in our runaway debt, so we can invest in the future again. We can put our tax code back on the side of middle-class families and small businesses, giving more people a chance to climb the ladder of opportunity. We can invest in education, knowing that it builds our common future like no special-interest giveaway can. We can invest in innovation and path-breaking discovery - so California's economy once again leads the nation and the world.

You and I know that this election will make a profound difference. It's a choice between far different values and far different plans for the future.

When Governor Schwarzenegger was asked how he would address the mountain of debt he has created, he said, and I quote: "there really is no plan to end the deficit."

Hey, at least he's consistent on his agenda for the future. He's has no plan to reduce the middle-class tax burden; no plan to improve education; no plan to expand health care for families. He ought to change his name to Governor Schwarzenothing.

Of course, the Governor's now making more election-year promises, just like he did during the Recall. But he broke all those promises: burdening our kids with debt when he'd pledged to stop it; turning young people away from college and slashing classroom education when he'd promised to protect it; coddling special interests when he'd vowed to block them. He's broken more promises than he's had acting roles.

We don't need his rhetoric to know how he'll govern; we have his record of rewarding the special interests, time and time again. Is it any wonder he's raked in more than 100 million dollars in political contributions from them? How can he possibly govern effectively when he's so deep inside their pockets?

I'm no Hollywood action hero. But maybe it's time for a leader who can actually fulfill his promises -- a Governor who will restore the promise of this great state - not to six-figure lobbyists in Sacramento, but to the hard-working families who are the backbone of our state.

Today, I am laying out my plan to renew the promise of California. It is a plan that I will put before the people of this state in my first hundred days as Governor - so that unlike today, Californians are not left with excuses and empty rhetoric for the last hundred days.
 
My plan begins where it has to begin: cleaning up the budget mess that Arnold Schwarzenegger is leaving behind. And I'll have a tough job ahead of me, because he has left us with a 4.5 billion dollar deficit next year - enough hot checks to melt Glacier Point.

As Governor, I'll do what President Clinton did when he took office. I'll balance the budget. I'll put an end to Schwarzenegger's borrowing spree. I'll cut wasteful spending, crack down on tax cheats, and get rid of needless corporate tax loopholes.

I'll restore tax fairness - to avoid more cuts to education and health care, and more harm to poor and middle-class families. I'll make couples who earn more than half a million dollars each year pay the same tax rate that Governors Reagan and Wilson made them pay - for just three years, until we get back on our feet. For someone earning a million dollars a year, that's about eight bucks a day - not much more than the price of a couple lattes -- so we can use that money to balance the books and give a boost to working families instead.

And unlike the current Governor, I will never spend what we don't have. Everything I propose as Governor will be fully paid for -- line by line and dime by dime -- within a balanced state budget.

Then, once we have put this state back in the black, we can get back into the business of helping people again.

And I'm going to start by doing something Arnold Schwarzenegger has failed to do as Governor, and can't possibly afford to do while he is lining the pockets of his special-interest supporters: I will cut taxes and provide help for the middle-class families who have been squeezed by the Bush-Schwarzenegger agenda.

I'm talking about the families who have seen the cost of college loans raised by George Bush, and the price of college tuition and fees jacked up by Arnold Schwarzenegger. The families who have paid dearly at the gas pump, while George Bush and Arnold Schwarzenegger have cozied up to oil companies that now make $350 million in profits every single day. The families that are paying more for health care while George Bush and Arnold Schwarzenegger have coddled HMO's and insurance companies. The families that have seen their tax burden go up, while the wealthiest have seen theirs go down.

The special interests have gotten every break imaginable. As Governor, I'll give a break to hard-working, middle-class families for a change. I will begin by cutting taxes for the people who really need it - up to 660 dollars a year for families earning up to 100,000 dollars.

I will roll back the Schwarzenegger college tuition and fee hikes, a savings of up to 5,000 dollars for families with students at our state colleges and universities.

I will increase property tax relief for low-income seniors who rent or own their homes - the same tax break Governor Schwarzenegger tried to cut.

I will fight for a minimum wage increase that is permanently linked to inflation.

I will work to expand health coverage step-by-step, starting with all children in the State of California - and I will fight to curb rising health care costs, so they don't take a bigger bite out of your paycheck with each passing month.

My first priority as Governor will be to ease the burden on the middle class, and to invest more in their future.

Now, Governor Schwarzenegger is already attacking me the way Republicans always do: using all his special-interest campaign contributions to pretend he's not doing their bidding, while scaring people into thinking I'm the one who'll hurt working families.

Governor Schwarzenegger, shame on you. You know full well that you're defending the perks and privileges of powerful corporations and the wealthiest Californians, who've gotten the biggest tax breaks in modern history - while I'm going to cut taxes for four and a half million families and seniors.

There's only one candidate in this race who will stand up for middle-class families and stand up to the special interests - and you'd better believe it's not the current Governor.

The second pillar of my plan is a world-class education.

Now more than ever, our economy runs on ideas, on our precious human capital. And yet, faced with a state that is 48th out of 50 in student achievement and 43rd in what we spend to educate each child, this Governor cut K-12 education, and broke his promise to protect our state's legal guarantee for education funding. He said it would be cut - I quote -- "over my dead body."

If you elect me as your Governor, this body will make sure that that body never gets the chance to cut our schools and colleges again.

No matter what Arnold Schwarzenegger says today, he will put our schools on the chopping block next year, because he has no plan to close his multi-billion-dollar deficit. I have a real plan. I'll make sure the funding for our schools and our kids is there, and then I'll forge new innovations and initiatives so we can reach even higher -

Raising student achievement and reducing the number of public school drop-outs by 25,000 a year by the end of my governorship;

Recruiting 40,000 new and well-trained teachers over the next four years, to raise up the teaching profession and attract talented professionals to our schools;

Expanding the number of Californians earning bachelor's and associate degrees by 40,000 students -- to give us a fighting chance in the fast-moving global marketplace.

We're living in a new economic era. The entire store of human knowledge now doubles every five years. Our children's children will be working in jobs and industries we can't even imagine today. We need more education, not less of it - and that's what I will ensure as Governor.

Third, I will make the targeted investments that truly build the economy of the future.

I see a California future where we nourish economic opportunity - by helping the small businessman in an inner-city neighborhood; by supporting scientific research, because the biggest breakthroughs come when we chase science to its own ends; and by putting this state in the vanguard of emerging industries such as alternative energy, an estimated 400-billion-dollar market worldwide.

I will cut taxes for small businesses by up to 5,000 dollars a year, and expand micro-loans - to create untold jobs and opportunities for the future.

I will create a Clean California initiative to dramatically reduce gas and diesel use, making us the world leader in clean fuels.

I will use the investment power of California's pension funds, building on the success of my efforts as State Treasurer, to invest in innovation, and in our urban neighborhoods, making more out of taxpayers' money while we build the economy of the 21st Century.

And I will make smart investments in California's infrastructure - to improve our economic competitiveness and our environment at the same time.

In the coming weeks, I will be traveling to every corner of this state, speaking in greater detail about my plan for economic opportunity and prosperity for California's middle-class.

I expect you'll be hearing from my opponent too. You've already seen his special-interest-funded ads, saying I'm going to take this state backward.

Maybe he means I'm going to take us back to fiscal sanity;

Or back to rising wages and opportunity for the middle class;

Or back to a time when families could retire with respect and security;

Or back to a time when California had the best schools, and the finest and most affordable public colleges and universities in the world.

If that's his idea of going backward, then I'm all for it - and while we're doing that, he can go back to making action movies.
There's a reason the other side resorts to these kinds of well-funded assaults, these kinds of false claims.

A vast array of powerful interests have been feeding at the trough in Washington and Sacramento. What I'm proposing is a fundamental change in priorities. Because we can't afford four more years of Bush-Schwarzenegger economics. I'm running for Governor to stop the gravy train. I'm running to put this state back on the side of hard-working people, to challenge the special-interest status quo. And I will stake my election on it.

It's getting harder to raise a strong family in California. It's time for a Governor who understands that struggle, who is committed to addressing it.

My grandparents came to this country from Greece. My grandmother worked as a seamstress - long hours, into the night -- so my dad could go to college.

He didn't go to the University of California at Berkeley, one of the great universities in the world, to glorify himself; my parents didn't work hard all their lives, like their parents before them, to drive fancy cars or see their names on a marquee.

They wanted their kids to have even more chances than they'd had. That was their dream - that we'd do better than they had done, that they'd keep the faith with the next generation. And they did.

My father always told me: for every advantage you have, remember that there are people who work fifteen hours a day just to survive, people who never get a break from anyone. He always told me: don't ever, ever forget them.

If you elect me as your Governor, I won't forget. I will stand up for you every day. I will give everything I have to make this state home to your hopes, your own California dream.

We're going to win this race. And then we're going to go on and win something much greater -- for our children, and their children to follow.

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