Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Thursday laid out a bold agenda for public investment in the state’s highways, ports, water systems, hospitals and schools.
In his annual State of the State address that was at times conciliatory and at other times hearkened back to the strategic growth agenda of the middle of the last century, Schwarzenegger proposed $68 billion in bonds over the next 10 years that could be leveraged to pump more than $200 billion into the state’s infrastructure.
“The need is urgent. People sit in gridlock on our roads, wait for hours in hospital emergency rooms and drop their children off at overcrowded schools,” Schwarzenegger said. “Our strategic growth plan will take nearly $70 billion leveraged over the next 10 years, and we can do this without raising taxes.”
Schwarzenegger also called upon the Legislature to “immediately” pass a $1 an hour hike in the minimum wage so that he could sign it in time for half of that increase to take effect this year. He also said he was freezing scheduled hikes in tuition fees at state colleges and universities and he urged the federal government to allow the state to import prescription drugs from other countries.
Schwarzenegger’s speech was greeted with warm applause by the mostly Democrat legislators in the audience. He set the tone by acknowledging at the outset that he made mistakes last year in pursuing his special election agenda. “I have absorbed my defeat and learned my lesson. We must cut the partisanship and work together,” he said.
The centerpiece of Schwarzenegger’s growth plan is a $12 billion bond for transportation and goods movement, to reduce congestion on the state’s roads and highways, speed the movement of cargo through the ports and reduce air pollution. That money would then be leveraged using federal, local and private dollars into more than $100 billion over the next 10 years for 1,200 miles of new highway and carpool lanes and 600 miles in new mass transit.
Schwarzenegger also called for $37 billion in new bond monies for education: $26 billion for K-12 and $11 billion for colleges and universities. Most of the funds would go towards the building of new schools, classrooms, libraries and other education facilities.
And Schwarzenegger proposed $9 billion in new bond funds ($3 billion this year and $6 billion in 2010) to expand and upgrade the state’s water supply system.
In the Democratic response to Schwarzenegger’s speech, Senate President Pro-Tempore Don Perata, D-Oakland, and Assembly Speaker Fabian N & #250; & #324;ez, D-Los Angeles, said they would work with the governor to pass these “long overdue infrastructure investments,” but were skeptical about how the investments would be paid for.
“The governor is proposing a lot more spending than we are and it’s unclear how he plans to pay for it,” they said.
