Ask the Scholar
Document scope · 1 page
Scholar
Ask about this object, its catalog metadata, its source description, or the page inventory.
For page-specific OCR and visual context, open one of the page chats.
Scholar Source Context
Document identity
localId
118564438
label
Speeches - Governor Ronald Reagan, 1971 [01/01/1971-04/30/1971]
core
doc
dtoType
document
citationUrl
pageCount
1
Source metadata
id
118564438
contentType
document
title
Speeches - Governor Ronald Reagan, 1971 [01/01/1971-04/30/1971]
citationUrl
identifierLocal
840
collections
Ronald Reagan's Governor's Papers of the Press Unit
Governor Ronald Reagan's Speeches
thumbnailUrl
largeImageUrl
imageCount
1
hasImages
yes
source
import
hasTranscription
no
Source extras
naId
118564438
coverageEndDate
logicalDate
1975-12-31
year
1975
coverageStartDate
logicalDate
1967-01-01
year
1967
levelOfDescription
fileUnit
recordType
description
ocrSource
nara-archive
Single page context
seq
1
pageIndex
0
type
document
mediaId
cef9e626a6cf603a
ocrText
Ronald Reagan Presidential Library
Digital Library Collections
This is a PDF of a folder from our textual collections.
Collection: Reagan, Ronald: Gubernatorial Papers,
1966-74: Press Unit
Folder Title: Speeches - Governor Ronald Reagan, 1971
[01/01/1971-04/30/1971]
Box: P18
To see more digitized collections visit:
https://reaganlibrary.gov/archives/digital-library
To see all Ronald Reagan Presidential Library inventories visit:
https://reaganlibrary.gov/document-collection
Contact a reference archivist at: [email protected]
Citation Guidelines: https://reaganlibrary.gov/citing
National Archives Catalogue: https://catalog.archives.gov/
1971
INDEX
1-4-71
Inaugural Address
1-12-71
State of the State Message
1-25-71
National Press Club
1-27-71
National Sand & Gravel and Ready Mixed Concrete Convention
1-31-71
RSCC Convention
2-19-71
Governor's Industrial Safety Conference
3-3-71
Town Hall
3-11-71
Message to the Legislature - SMOG
3-24-71
Los Angeles Trade-Technical College Breakfast
3-25-71
Wisconsin Republican Dinner
3-26-71
Minnesota State Central Committee Fundraising Dinner
4-14-71
CSEA Institute on Government
4-23-71
YAF Convention - "Salute to George Murphy"
5-1-71
American Association of University Women
5-12-71
League of California Cities
5-14-71
Department of Consumer Affairs Annual Board Breakfast
5-19-71
State Women's and Men's Club Luncheon
5-22-71
Los Angeles County Medical Assn. - 100th Anniversary Dinner
5-24-71
Welfare Reform Rally
5-26-71
Los Angeles County Bar Association
6-2-71
Meeting of State Resources Boards
6-4-71
POW-MIA International, Inc. Dinner
6917-71
California Livestock Symposium
6-22-71
Commonwealth Club of California
Education
6-23-71
Town Hall
6-25-71
American Legion State Convention
7-19-71
Consumer Fraud Task Force Meeting
7-23-71
San Diego Republican Dinner
9-3-71
Sacramento Host Breakfast
9-27-71
International Assn. of Police Chiefs
9-29-71
League of California Cities
10-2-71
L.A. Republican State Central Committee
10-5-71
California Real Estate Association Convention
10-7-71
A. D. Edmonston Pumping Plant Dedication
11-16-71
American Petroleum Institute
12-10-71
Japanese graups (SF?)
INAUGURAL ADDRESS OF GOVERNOR RONALD REAGAN
JANUARY 4, 1971
Governor's Inaugural Committee
555 Capitol Mall
Lacramento, California 95814
TERRY EAGAN
(916)4424751
Press Director
(916) 442-4761
PRESS RELEASE
PLEASE GUARD AGAINST PREMATURE PUBLICATION
January 4, 1971
For Release Monday p.m.s
Lieutenant Governor Reinecke, our fellow constitutional
officers, leaders and members of the Senate and Assembly--my
fellow Californians:
Remembering our last meeting here under these same
circumstances and in spite of the general belief that pain cannot:
be re-lived in memory, I recalled the cold of that day 4 years ago
and decided that cold's ability to shrink and contract should be
applied to my remarks. We will soon be indoors and thawed out!
I do. not know whether time has a faster pace in. Sacramento
than elsewhere but these four years have gone by more swiftly than
they did when I marked a four-year term as the period from Fresh-
man to Senior. And yet in this four-year span we have plumbed the
ocean depths and reached out to the stars. We have lived for
extended periods on the ccean's floor and have walked on the sur-
face of the moon. In fact I have been up in the air a few times
myself and once or twice have sought advice about living under
water.
- 2 -
But it is almost a cliche' to remark that we live in a time
of accelerating change. Events once measured against a lifetime
are compressed into a decade or even a year. Space and time and
distance have been both stretched and shrunk and yesterday is but
a preview of tomorrow.
Yet with all the change, some things remain the same. Our
goal, for example, of promoting the well being of our people with-
in a more just and perfect union you will note I said promote not
provide.
On that day four years ago, I asked that we set foot on a
path leading toward a Creative Society. We have travelled that
road since and with all my heart I believe we should continue.
It turns away from increasing reliance on government and leads
toward renewed respect for--and greater reliance on--the collective
genius and common sense of the people.
It is not always an easy path because, by design, it demands
as much from those who elect, as it does from those who are
elected. This is of course the very reason it is a good road to
follow. When those who are governed do too little, those who
govern can--and often will--do too much.
When we first set foot on that path I expressed a belief that
the most meaningful words in our Constitution are three in number,
- 3 -
contained in the phrase, "We the people." Those of us who faced
you from these historic steps then, and we today who have been
elected to constitutional office or legislative position, are in
that three word phrase. We are of the people, chosen by them to
see that no permanent structure of state government ever encroaches
upon freedom or assumes a power beyond that freely granted by the
people."
We have just gone through the ritual of election. By mandate
of the people the power to govern will be shared. Control of the
Legislature rests with representatives of one party and most of
the constitutional officers and executive branch are of the other.
To conclude pessimistically--as some have--that little progress
can come from such a situation is to deny the value of the two-
party system which has served us so well. Those who mournfully
predict there will he little constructive action during this
session of the Legislature do an injustice.
Now I do not mean to suggest there will not be certain
differences of opinion and even some spirited debate in the days
ahead. But I have no doubt that together WE can conduct the
people's business in 2 constructive and effective way. In the
first place, the people of California sent us here to do just that.
And in the second place, our situation with regard to the division
of power and authority is little different than it has been for
- 4 -
these past four years and together we have accomplished much in
those years.
Unhindered by party lines, one of the great engineering feats
of all time, the California Water Project, is nearing completion.
We have continued to add to our network of modern high speed
highways and freeways and with every added mile we have saved the
lives of our citizens.
While traffic fatality rates climb in the rest of the nation,
ours continues to decline.
Our state has shown the way in environmental protection.
Much remains to be done of course, but we are meeting the challenge.
Legislation needed in the fight against air and water pollution
has been provided and we are united in our determination to pre-
serve the magic beauty of California.
With the entire nation plagued by runaway crime rates and
bulging prisons, our major California cities report a reduction
in crimes of violence.
Our rehabilitation policies and improved parole system are
attracting nationwide attention. Fewer parolees are being
returned to prison than at any time in our history and our prison
population is lower than at any time since 1963.
- 5 -
It is the same in mental health where the number of
hospitalized mentally ill patients is half what it was four years
ago.
Since the tax increase of 1967, more than 40 pieces of
legislation have been passed easing the tax burden. More than 5
percent of the annual budget is money returned directly to th
homeowner.
The Creative Society has demonstrated its ability to reduce
the size of government. The cost of actually administering state
government has increased less than the increase in inflation along
At the start of the fiscal year, there were fewer full-time
employees than there were four years ago, and the press reported
the other day what may be a first in the history of government--a
great reduction in the annual accumulation of paper to be filed
and stored.
All of this has been accomplished neither because of, nor
in spite of, partisanship which explains my optimism that
progress will continue.
This brief re-cap was not intended to gloss over or minimize
the very real problems confronting the people and government of
California. Still unsolved is the absolute necessity of sizeably
reducing the tax burden of home owners
- 6 -
This is complicated by the state's fiscal situation. A
subject which cries for more light and less heat. So far, too
many explanations and interpretations have been couched in the
rhetoric of campaign oratory. Confusion has led to uncertainty
and fear. There is cause for neither.
One week from tomorrow I will appear before a joint meeting
of the state legislature, the Senate and Assembly combined, to
discuss in some detail and make public the full extent of our
money problems. In the meantime some clarification here and now
is appropriate.
The group of economists and business experts, who for 25
years have been forecasting revenues and expenditures upon which
state budgets are based, revised their estimate of expected tax
revenues downward last June as a result of the general slow-down
in the economy. There have been two revisions since--in late
November and mid-December--further reducing estimated revenues.
This slump in tax revenues, however, is not our greatest
problem. It just aggrevated a situation that has been growing
worse year after year. Welfare costs have been increasing more
than three times as fast as revenue and in this present year
have escalated at an even faster rate. Californians do not have
to worry about proving their generosity and compassion for their
less fortunate neighbors. On a per capita basis, we spend more
7 -
than double the national average for welfare. In spite of this,
we must face the fact that welfare has failed in its purpose. For
the truly destitute among us it is a tragic failure. It has done
little or nothing to eliminate the cause of dependency and it has
spread itself so thin that in spite of its overwhelming extrava-
gance, many whose need is the greatest are provided less than a
minimum subsistance.
Under the aid to dependent children program, incentives are
offered to encourage mothers to take employment. There can be
no quarrel with this unless we look closely at how the incentive
and complex regulations actually apply. A recent survey of 3
counties, representing 48% of the welfare caseload in California
(Monterey, Los Angeles and San Diego Counties), showed the
earnings or outside income of employed recipients averages $346
a month and the average grant from welfare, added to those
earnings, is $186--for a total average of $532 a month. However,
the survey also disclosed mothers of dependent children who have
no outside income receive average grants of $207--only $21 more
than the grant given the others. Common sense and simple fairness
suggest reducing grants to those with outside income in order to
increase our ability to help the totally dependent.
8 -
Mandated by statute and federal regulation, welfare has
proliferated and grown into aLeviathan of unsupportable dimensions.
We have economized and even stripped essential public services to
feed its appetite. Now the economic downturn has brought us to
the moment of truth We have avoided for too long a time.
It has already been suggested that we meet this situation by
simply adding to the taxpayers' heavy load. That of course is an
easy out--for everyone but the taxpayer who already pays too much
for government.
I'm inclined to believe you didn't send us here to find easy
answers. A tax increase--even under the illusion that it would
be a temporary expedient-- will not resolve this problem. In the
first place, temporary taxes have a way of outliving the problems
that caused their birth. Government may protest that it never gets
the money it needs, but it always manages to find a need for the
money it gets.
Simply meeting this problem by finding additional funds, or
passing it on to another level of government, is truly a temporary
solution. Unless and until we face up to, and effect complete
reform of welfare, we will face a tax increase next year, the
year after, and the year after that---on into the future as far
as we can see. There is no limit to the potential growth of the
- 9 -
present welfare structure, short of total redistribution of the
earnings of all who earn and produce.
We are faced with a choice. We can be depressed by a
seeming fiscal crisis, or we can recognize this as the opportunity
it really is. Let those who will wring their hands and cry doom.
They will not be typical of our people.
We have a chance to do what might otherwise never have been
done. Over the years we've talked about welfare, studied welfare,
applied alterations and streamlined it's administration where
possible, but we've avoided facing up to it's lack of a goal.
Seneca said, "He who knows no port to sail for, finds no winds
favorable."
In the coming meeting with the legislature eight days from
now, I shall propose restructuring welfare--to eliminate waste
and the impropriety of subsidizing those whose greed is greater
than their need. The present confusion must be replaced with a
program designed to save, rather than destroy, California's
greatest resource--its people--a program that will maximize
human dignity and salvage the destitute.
Pere in California nearly a million children are growing up
in the stultifying atmosphere of programs that reward people for
- 10 -
not working, programs that separte families and doom these children
to repeat the cycle in their own adulthood.
I believe we can change this. There is no greater challenge
facing the state or nation. Why shouldn't California take this
"giant stride for mankind?" If not us who? If not now--when?
In recent months a few in our midst have raised the haunting
spectre of panic and depression. It is time we inoculated our-
selves against the contagion of fear they would spread.
The national government has embarked on a campaign to slow
an inflation which has threatened our economy. There has been
an understandable cooling off in the marketplace and a loss of
earnings and employment. I do not minimize the anguish of the
man or woman whose vocation or career has been interrupted.
Everything possible must be done to alleviate their distress and
shorten the period of economic dislocation.
But let us measure our strength. Let those who would play
upon our fears til we develop "an over the hill to the poorhouse"
psychosis look at this way of life we call California as it
really is.
If this state were a nation, it would rank among the top
half-dozen economic giants of the world.
11 I I
Our gross product will top one hundred billion dollars this
year. We will earn more and spend more than any people anywhere
in the world.
Eighty-four percent of us live in cities of more than 25,000.
Yet we lead the nation in agricultural wealth.
We are young, with a median age of 30--just inside that no-
man's land between the generations.
Our educational level is higher. We have a higher percentage
of professionals and skilled technicians, and more than double
our share of scholars and scientists.
In the decade which we embark upon today, the average family
income will go from a little over $13,000 to more than $18,000
per year.
If all 20 million of US wanted to live elsewhere, we would
find 100 people willing to trade places with each one of us.
Those who whine of a sick society aren't talking about us.
Our young people seek a cause in which they can invest their
idealism, their youth and their strength. And we have such a
cause. But we must prove to them our own faith and belief, that
ours is the most innovative state in the union; that we have a
history of accepting change--indeed of making change happen.
-- 12 -
For, as Mark Twain once said: "The easy and slothful didn't come
to California. They stayed home."
It is time to ignore those who are obsessed with what is
wrong. Concentrate our attention on what is right--on how great
is our power and potential, and how little we have to fear.
As I told a group of your fellow citizens who visited this
capitol last fall, if California's problems and California's
people were put in a ring together, it would have to be declared
a mis-match.
We owe our humble thanks to a God who has blessed us possibly
more than we deserve. Let us, in our stewardship of all He has
given us, at least try to match His bounty--try as men to match
His mountains.
####
Note: Since Governor Reagan speaks from notes, there may be
changes in, or additions to, the above quotes. However,
the governor will stand by the above quotes.
21/1
01
/
OFFICE OF THE GOVER R
RELEASE: Tuesda P.M.'s
Sacramento, California
Contact: Paul Beck
445-4571
1-12-71
(PLEASE GUARD AGAINST PREMATURE RELEASE)
TEXT OF STATE OF THE STATE MESSAGE
TO A
JOINT SESSION OF THE CALIFORNIA STATE LEGISLATURE
by
GOVERNOR RONALD REAGAN
January 12, 1971
We are all here as a result of the recent much discussed election.
Many questions have been raised about campaign costs and how to curb
them. May I suggest one step we could take that would not only reduce
the high cost of campaigning but would certainly save a lot of wear and
tear
on
candidates and, I suspect, on the public, too? Move the
primary from June to September and shorten the game by half.
Now that the Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court have given the
18-year olds the vote in federal elections, I certainly think we should
take those steps necessary to let the citizens of California determine
whether that shall be extended to state and local elections.
I am sure all of us hope this will be a year of real achievement
for the people of California and it can be: 1971 can be the year we
clear up some of the business we have been trying to get done for a long
time past.
Speaker Bob Moretti was quoted the other day as saying that he
believes the time for talk has passed and that "what will be necessary
is we have the courage to take effective action" on our important problems
While I would not presume to speak for President pro Tem Mills and the
Honorable members of this joint session, still I am sure the vast
majority of us are here to engage in effective action.
It is in such a spirit of constructive cooperation that I offer some
major goals which I believe are worthy of consideration and attainment.
They relate to five of the basic areas of our state government, and are
interrelated:
Education
Environment
Public Safety
-Taxation and fiscal policies, and
Public assistance, both welfare and Msdi-Cal.
Obviously in our limited time together today I can only touch on
them briefly. But in the coming weeks, I will send you more detailed
messages on each of these matters.
-1-
Education
In education, I look forward to working closely with Superintendent
of Public Instruction Wilson Riles, to reform not only the methods used
to finance our public schools, but also the way the schools' are held
accountable for quality and results. We must revamp the methods of
raising and distributing funds and also eliminate counter-productive
and wasteful procedures. For too long now, conscious of the growing gap
between available revenues and program needs, we have tried to increase
our support with no real knowledge on the part of any of us of how much
money was actually needed. Before we blindly apportion more of the
people's money, the time has come to see how much the school districts
themselves can do to narrow the revenue gap through revision of business
practices systems.
Various studies, made by the state and other agencies, clearly
indicate serious managerial deficiencies in many school districts. The
state can take an important part in providing guidance in upgrading
management skills in education. It is our biggest single public invest-
ment and the public has the right to expect the highest cost-benefit
return on the taxpayer's dollar. In addition, California annually
receives nearly one quarter of a billion dollars for education by way
of the federal government and a process must be established to insure
that these federal funds are correctly spent to achieve our long-range
state and local goals.
Finances
Our Special Task Force on School Finance has pointed out what many
of you already know: that the various formulas for school subventions
have outlived their usefulness to school districts and must be
simplified. Coupled with this there must be a comprehensive property
tax reform to free the education system from such heavy reliance on
what is a restrictive and outmoded source of revenue.
Functional Illiterates
Over the past 18 months the Governor's Commission on Educational
Reform which some of you have assisted has been studying the program
changes necessary to restore some meaning to the elementary and
secondary school programs. I can tell you of their dismay over the
functional illiteracy evidenced by so many of our high school graduates;
-2-
far too many of thes young men and women have ( led to acquire the
ability to read, to write, to compute and to communicate. It is not
enough to say they have failed; it is more pertinent to ask, "has the
system failed?" and if so how can it be corrected?
Tenure
The original and legitimate reasons for tenure no longer exist.
Tenure has become a haven for the incompetent teacher. It should be
altered to include a system of merit pay which provides real incentives
for quality teaching. This should not be precipitous; a judicious,
sensible phase-out would be a real service to all concerned the
student, the public and the teaching profession.
Voucher Plan
There is always need for innovation in any system; education must be
no exception. There are those who see the voucher plan" as the answer
to making schools more responsive. There are others who see it as a
threat of unutterable evil. No one on either side seems to have facts
upon which to base his often emotional stand. Why shouldn't we under-
take some pilot tests in selected districts and thus introduce some
facts into the debate?
Higher Education
Past generations of Californians--both lay citizens and members of
the academic community--have given us a heritage of quality education.
That the foundations were firmly laid is indicated by the fact that,
though the campuses have undergone six years of turmoil, the University
still maintains very high stature in graduate Letters and Science
education among the academic institutions of the nation; we have one
of the finest state college systems in the United States; and our
community college system has no equal.
But during these six years on our campuses, there were those who
did stray from the highest academic traditions
using the classroom
for the advancement of personal bias rather than to excite the
curiosity of the student. The basic issue was whether the classroom was
to stimulate curiosity and to provide information for the student so
that he could make intelligent decisions or whether it was to insist
that the student accept those conclusions that represented the
instructor's personal beliefs and attitudes.
-3-
Today we find a BW and welcome readiness d the part of many
faculty members, students, and administrators to reaffirm high pro-
fessional standards and ethics and to recognize responsibilities to
the society which founded and has maintained our University and colleges.
We face some unresolved problems in higher education. For one
thing, with the University charging tuition an imbalance exists so
long as the state colleges do not. The Trustees have asked for per-
mission to institute tuition and should be allowed to do SO.
The quality of higher educational opportunities can be improved.
Our undergraduates in the universities deserve, as President Hitch has
said, a larger. proportion of faculty time and a greater investment of
faculty interest.
Non-resident fees for out-of-state and foreign students should be
reviewed. It is hard to justify subsidizing these students when it
grows increasingly difficult to provide an education for our own resi-
dents. This would also apply to "perpetual students" who for no
apparently valid reason become permanent campus fixtures.
"Technical Education
We should encourage those who seek a college education, and do our
best to provide the opportunities and the facilities. But we must not
neglect those who do not want a college degree. Almost half of our
California young people do not go to college and fewer finish. They
would prefer to move directly from high school into some of the technical
jobs in our highly technological society. For them we must make sure
that a technical education is an open road, not a deadend street. We
should move to lift technical education to its proper status and help
it fulfill its tremendously important role.
It would be well to review and update the Master Plan for Higher
Education which was written more than ten years ago.
Environment
In the area of environment and ecology, it is and must be our
continuing goal to refurbish and reclaim what has been debauched and
to protect that which is still clean and fresh and open---and to do
this in a sensible, responsible and balanced manner.
-4-
To attain these ils, I intend to deliver t you a message on
environment which will propose a high level environmental protection
body, and will also outline some further steps to improve the quality
of our air and our water.
Solid Waste
Californians account for slightly more than 20 pounds of solid
waste per person per day. In an uncompacted condition, one year's
accumulation of paper, bottles, cans, trash of all sorts could build
a wall 100 feet wide and 30 feet high from Oregon to Mexico. I am
not suggesting we do that.
I am suggesting one state agency should be given the authority
to coordinate, encourage and assist local and regional entities to
plan for and regulate solid waste disposal systems and sites. This
would enable us to work closely with the federal government through
the recently enacted National Resources Recovery Act.
-5-
State of the State
Balanced Transportation
The desire for subsidized mass urban transit is seen most clearly
and can be measured most responsibly at the local level. I continue
to support an approach which protects local autonomy and provides a
source of local revenue while insuring that the state highway system
continue to receive its full share of gas tax revenues.
Coastal Zone Protection
The preservation and protection of California's coastal resources
must surely rank among our highest environmental priorities. We cannot
abide a piece-meal destruction of our magnificent coast.
Recreational Subdivisions
The State Subdivision Map Act should be amended to require that the
design of recreational subdivisions include strong environmental as well
as engineering considerations,
Public Safety and Court Reform
Our goal in the area of public safety should be to quarantee every
citizen the right to be secure in his person and property and the right
to an efficient, speedy and just court system.
Anyone who has had any business in any of our courts knows that oi
courts are overcrowded and the administration of the system is bogging
down.
I have asked Chief Justice Donald Wright, Attorney General Evelle
Younger, and the Judicial Council to work with us to resolve this crisis
before public confidence is completely lost.
With regard to public safety, you have passed in the last two
sessions, anti-crime bills which have done much to aid local law
enforcement. I would like to suggest three more:
--the killing of a law enforcement officer while on duty should be
first degree murder;
--the amount of reward money the governor can offer for information
leading to the arrest and conviction of persons killing or injuring
police officers should be increased above the existing $1,000 maximum, and
--it should be a felony to specifically advocate killing or
injuring law enforcement officers.
-6-
State of the State
Drug Abuse
Let me thank you for enacting last year the most comprehensive
program in the nation for intra-state control of restricted drugs.
But we must continue our efforts to communicate with our young people,
and rehabilitate the victims. I am convinced the answer is not just
shutting off the supply. We won't win this war until we find a way to
convince our young people they just don't want to go down that road.
Fiscal Policy
All of the things I have mentioned so far are totally dependent on
finding the solution to one problem. We must put our fiscal house in
order. There has been much speculation about the inevitability of a
tax increase. A tax increase is inevitable only if we refuse to accept
readily available alternatives.
As I stated a week ago, our revenues are substantially below the
estimates upon which this year's budget was planned. And expenditures
for Medi-cal and welfare are substantially higher than we had anticipated
The first problem is the result of the economic slump which is
nationwide. Since this is a temporary dislocation, I see no reason why
government should not meet it with a temporary solution. If government
curbs its normal appetite and curtails some less than vital activities;
who knows we might discover some of those activities are so "less than
vital" they won't even be missed. Let us not be like the waiter who
asked the boss for a raise because he was breaking more dishes than his
paycheck could cover. I think we would find it difficult to explain to
people who are doing some personal budget cutting themselves right now
why we had to raise taxes to cover what we all know is a temporary
shortage.
Public Assistance
The second part of the problem, of course, is not temporary but it
can be if we are willing to make it so. The escalating increase in the
cost of Medi-Cal and welfare is due to basic flaws in the framework of
these programs.
Californians make up ten percent of the nation's population but have
point seven
16 percent of all who are on welfare. Five/percent of Americans receive
welfare. In California it is 9.4 percent. The state and local costs
pro-rate out at $57.55 for every man, woman, child and baby in the state
more than double the national average.
-7-
State of the State
Together we can make reforms which will not only lighten this
burden but make it possible for us to do more for the truly poor who
have no one to turn to but us. We have this as an alternative to
increasing taxes.
The public's general antagonism toward welfare does not stem from
any lack of willingness to help the needy. The figures I have just cited
make that plain. The public can see very well that complex and confusing
regulations make welfare virtually unmanageable. We can all sympathize
with regulations insuring confidentiality of the case histories of
welfare recipients. But when a county welfare director has to fight in
court to get information from his own employees, we have gone from the
benign to the ridiculous.
Another regulation inhibits challenging an applicant's eligibility.
The same government that requires a tax paying citizen to document every
statement on his tax return decrees that questioning a welfare applicant
demeans and humiliates him.
I am sure that welfare recipients are generally as honest as other
citizens but like the rest of us they should not object to routine
procedures to protect against those who might cheat. And it is possible
to cheat on welfare. Just recently the press told of some indignant
citizens in the Bay Area who proved this to their county supervisors.
They were all employed and had no economic problems. But they travelled
the circuit of welfare offices applying for and getting on welfare,
usually without even furnishing identification. One managed to get on
welfare four times under four different names in one day---at the same
office,
Foreign nationals in uncounted numbers are on California welfare.
California recipients leave the state and even the country and continue
to receive their checks and there is no way to know whether they have
applied for welfare in their new location. Nor can we prove the
beneficiaries of the Supreme Court decision who come here from other
states and get instant welfare are not also continuing to receive checks
from their former homes. One woman eligible for welfare by reason of
pregnancy was still eligible even though her pregnancy had reached fifteen
months.
-8-
State of the State
Then there are incentives to encourage recipients to take jobs.
Again, no quarrel with the goal but when does incentive become
unnecessary windfall? The incentives are so open ended there is
virtually no limit to the earnings an individual can make and still
retain welfare eligibility. Take for example a woman on aid to dependent
children receiving a $221 grant who gets a $600 a month job. The federal
formula begins to operate. Thirty dollars of the $600 does not have to
be counted nor does one-third of the balance, or any deductions for taxes,
retirement, union dues, child care costs, special clothing, transportation
(and this includes payments on a car) and $25 for miscellaneous. It is
entirely possible to reduce the $600 down to zero and continue drawing
the $221. According to the press at least one individual earning $16,800
a year continues to legally draw welfare. How do we close the gap
between need and income for the totally destitute.
Our goal must be to reform and restructure the entire welfare system.
The Employables
While we assist the truly needy who have nowhere else to turn, we
must also insist that able-bodied adult recipients work and meet their
own responsibilities. And in all of this we must aim to strengthen
family responsibility as the basic element in society.
One of our first steps will be a clear administrative and operational
distinction between the employable and the unemployable. This will take
a costly administrative burden off the backs of the counties. The aged
and disabled are in truth pensioners they should receive their checks
through an automated process similar to Social Security.
This would leave us with the potentially employable who for whatever
reason do not have a marketable job skill. They should be transferred
to the jurisdiction of the Department of Human Resources Development.
There under a coordinated operation of Human Resources Development's
programs, the Department of Rehabilitation and the private sector they
would participate in an expanded job-training, job development and job
lacement operation.
Now let it be clearly understood, we do not propose this in the
vengeful spirit of "make them do something for their money. 11 The vast
number of them would far rather work at something useful.
G.
State of the State
(
F.D.R. in the dark depths of the depression in 1935 warned:
"The lessons of history show conclusively that continued dependence upon
relief induces a spiritual and moral disintegration fundamentally
destructive to the national fibre. To dole out relief is to administer
a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit."
This quote would also apply to work for the sake of working
digging holes and filling them up. This is not what we have in mind.
We intend to catalogue all those things in the public area which are
not now being done and which would possibly never be done because of
lack of funds and manpower. This would include local, county and state
governments. These public jobs would not displace present employees or
interfere with existing patterns of employment and certainly not
become a way of getting cheap labor. I think organized labor should be
involved in finding these tasks.
-10-
State-of-the-State ( ssage
Each agency and department of state government has already been
told to examine its operations and to list those things not now being
done, but which could be done by able bodied recipients. The field
of environment alone should open new opportunities. I have to believe
that you can see what a great step forward it would be to have thousands
of our citizens receiving a paycheck instead of a handout, with at the
same time the self pride of knowing they are helping to make California
a better place. In other words, the billions now being spent on a dole
would be financing improvements for our state and underwriting a public
work force.
These revisions in welfare operations will call for a shift of
emphasis, personnel and funds which will be detailed in a future message
to you.
Eligibility Standards
We must establish realistic eligibility standards so that only
the needy can qualify for assistance. Without such reasonable restraints
there can be no equitable distribution of welfare funds or fiscal
accountability.
A revision of the welfare statutes is necessary to put a ceiling
on the amount of earnings an individual can have and still remain on
the welfare rolls.
Absent Fathers
Nearly 80 percent of our welfare families involve an absent
father. Separation of husband and wife, divorce or dispute, does not
absolve the father from his moral and legal responsibilities to care
for his children if he can. (There are, today, too many instances
where the taxpayer is forced to subsidize some father's yen to travel.)
We will propose incentives and procedures to help the counties locate
absent fathers and enforce parental responsibilities.
Welfare Secrecy
As for the hampering confidentiality statutes, the public has a
right to know what it is paying for-where and how its dollar is being
spent; welfare can be no exception. The use of public funds demands
public information. The cloak of secrecy must be removed.
-11-
County Responsiblity
If these reforms are to work, the counties must follow through at
their level. If they submit to pressure and protests and pick up what
the state has eliminated or curtailed, they simply shift the costs from
one level of government to another and the whole idea of reform is
defeated. As a matter of fact, all levels of government federal, state
and local--must work together on this effort, changing attitudes, laws
and regulations where necessary to permit a restructuring of the entire
welfare program.
Medi-Cal
Equally drastic reform is demanded in Medi-Cal. In its first
year of operation, Medi-Cal began exceeding estimated costs when only a
third of those eligible had discovered its magic basket of goodies. Five
years ago one out of 15 Californians was on Medi-Cal--today one out of
is enjoying with few inhibitions on use, a program of unlimited coverage
providing two to three times the services of health programs the working
man can afford for himself and his family.
In 1968, this legislature passed a law which was very explicit in
the steps' it mandated if and when there was a threatened Medi-Cal deficit
The first step required by that law is to reduce the payments to provider,
of health care services by 10 percent. That step has been taken. The
second step under the law is to postpone, not eliminate, but postpone
certain non-essential elective services. This has been done and with no
disruption or jeopardy to essential health services.
For several weeks now, as we have complied with the law, a number
of people have been confused and have credited me with thinking up
these steps in my own head. Honesty and simple fairness compel me to
let you share in the glory.
Hastily enacted under a federal whip, five years of operation have
made it plain that Medi-Cal cannot meet California's needs. During
this session we will present for your consideration a plan to limit our
health care services to the poor so they will be comparable with the
health benefits provided by the various prepaid health insurance plans
covering most of our citizens.
Co-Payment
One of our goals will be to place some responsibility on each
user of the plan. This should include a system of co-payment or
deductibles with provision of course for emergency or catastrophic
illness. This and other reforms we feel must be made in Medi-Cal will
come to you in a subsequent report. You and I will have to work
together and we must seek support in Washington for changes in attitude
regulations and statutes.
State-of-the-State message
Six weeks ago we announced the first of a series of cutbacks and
freezes to bring expenditures into line with our reduced revenues.
Those steps plus some less spectacular measures which will be announced
in the budget message will come very close to correcting this year's
deficit.
Tax Reform
There will be a cash flow problem which will be covered by
internal borrowing. California will face recurring problems which would
not exist if withholding had been enacted last year. I hope that
together we can enact tax reform that will finally alleviate the unjust
burden borne by the property owner. Some have proposed changing the
Constitution so that taxes on banks and corporations can be raised by
simple majority. I called attention to the same inequity in last year's
proposed tax reform but suggested a different solution; that we leave
the bank and corporation tax as is and that all tax increases require a
two-thirds vote. Our people might be gratified if we made it harder--
not easier to increase all taxes.
1971-72 Budget
Dire predictions have been made about the 1971-72 budget. Those
who predict a gigantic deficit have apparently assumed that we would
accept "business as usual" and send the bill to the taxpayer. That
assumption is out of character with the economic policies we have
advocated these past four years. We have made every effort to make
California's government the most economical and efficient in the nation
and we have had the help of many of you. I ask for that continued help
and offer mine to you. For example, an Assemblyman not of my party has,
in the last few days, approached us with an idea for auditing the
priorities and programs of all the departments of state government. It
is a much needed and creative idea. He can count on my enthusiastic
support.
You and I have run out of time. We are at the point where this
state can no longer sustain its operations on the revenue it now takes
from the people. Therefore, we are confronted by a choice. We can
reform government--reduce the cost of services, particularly in welfare
and Medi-Cal, or we can increase taxes. To choose the latter without
excising the cancer eating at our vitals is to face tax increases year
in and year out for as long as we shall be here. I intend to travel
another course.
-13-
State-of-the-State message
I will submit a budget which can be balanced without an increase
in taxes. In this year of unusual circumstances admittedly there will
be items deferred, other areas in which we would like to spend more and
projects will be curtailed which will bring cries of anguish from some.
But their anguish is no more than the day in day out anguish of our
citizens.
No one of us can any longer enjoy the luxury of going it alone.
We must work together, Democrats and Republicans, legislators and
executives. The people have made it evident they want a bi-partisan
cooperative management of this state. If we refuse them this and
fail it will not really matter which one of us brought disaster. If we
succeed, it will not matter much who gets the credit. In fact, success
can only come from a joint effort. Failure is inevitable without it.
The people have made it clear that we in government will do this or they
will terminate our right to govern.
The choice is ours the people of California are waiting for
our decision.
#####
$
-14-
**
55/1
Sacramento, Californ's
Contact:
Paul Bed
445-4571
1-25-71
EXCERPTS OF REMARKS BY GOVERNOR RONALD REAGAN
National Press Club, Washington, D.C.
January 25, 1971.
May I acknowledge the presence of the ladies in the audience? And
commend your male colleagues for having made your presence here legal.
As a political campaigner, I admire your margin of victory
80 per cent. In American politics 55 percent is considered a landslide.
The whole mountain fell on you.
Having put to rest any thought that I am an advocate of male
chauvinism, let me run the risk of appearing unappreciative of your
hospitality and say with apologies to the Chamber of Commerce, Washington
is a nice place to visit but I wouldn't want to live here.
There has been a lot of talk about "polarization" in our society
and the need for temperate rhetoric to bring us together again.
Those of us in public life might begin by conceding that despite
our differences over methods, our goals are the same. We could stipulate
that there are men of good will on both sides of the various issues, all
seeking fair and workable answers to the problems we face.
This does not mean that we cannot disagree over methods. But
reasonable debate can be conducted within the framework of common courtesy.
My recent veto of a proposed $1.8 million grant to the California
Rural Legal Assistance Group (CRLA) is an unfortunate example of how
misunderstanding can escalate. One of our California Senators fired off
a volley of critical comment in opposition to the CRLA veto without
even a phone call to check as to the "why" of the veto.
If he had, he would have found that we have no basic quarrel about
the desirability of providing legal services to the poor. We have
approved and are recommending for funding this year other federally-
financed programs for legal foundations and groups which provide similar
services to the urban poor. The Senator would have learned also that the
CRLA grant was vetoed because this group has violated the guidelines and
conditions that were attached to its previous grants.
It was not motivated by any philosophical disagreement with the
original purpose of the program. State officials of the Office of
Economic Opportunity have submitted a 283-page report, backed by almost
9,000 pages of affidavits, statements and other documented material to
support the basic point that CRLA is not concentrating on providing civil
legal services for the poor. For example:
- 1 -
National Press Club
The
CRLA is ecifically prohibited from Representing criminals
because its resources are supposed to be used to provide civil legal
assistance, California already has an existing Public Defender system
which many attorneys consider a model for the nation. But CRLA has
repeatedly accepted and represented persons involved in criminal offenses
--CRLA is specifically prohibited, under the conditions attached
to its grant, from accepting cases that are fee-generating in nature.
In one of the cases cited in this report, two women seeking divorces
were informed that the CRLA office would handle the cases for a fee
of $300 each.
--A district attorney described the activities of CRLA this way:
"This agency (CRLA) has failed miserably to discharge its obligations
to the indigent rural people, has wasted hundreds of thousands of
dollars of our taxes
#
--CRLA attorneys were cited for having represented the promoters
of a rock festival, an activity that in our opinion does not conform
to its guidelines or stated purpose.
In summing up the thrust of CRLA's activities, the report notes
that these incidents: (and here I'm quoting)
"Reveals at best a blatant indifference to the needs of the poor
at worst a disposition to use their (CRLA's) clients as ammunition in
their efforts to wage ideological warfare
The dominant thrust of
CRLA's activities is ideological Time and again, when they (CRLA
attorneys) have had opportunities to settle cases out of court or solve
a problem at a lower level of controversy, they chose escalation. The
result was always to stir dissension, fear and division in the
communities they are supposed to be serving."
The State OEO Offfice and my office have received numerous
allegations of misconduct and violations of professional ethics by CRLA.
I was implored to veto the refunding of CRLA by county grand juries,
local district attorneys, judges, county supervisors (commissioners),
state legislators and many, many citizens who do not feel that any more
tax money should be granted to an agency that consistently refuses to
do the job it was established to perform.
To prove we do not mean to neglect the need of the poor to have
free legal counsel, we have presented a plan to OEO which would answer
this need. It has the offer of enthusiastic cooperation and support
from county bar associations in California.
2 I I
National Press Club
No subject brin out the polarization the good guy, bad guy
syndrome more than welfare. Any criticism or suggestion of change
finds us automatically divided with the white hats on one side bubbling
over with the milk of human kindness and fired up with righteous
indignation. All who differ are Scrooges out to deny even bare
subsistence to the needy.
Welfare, our greatest single outlay of public funds at three levels
of government, is adrift without rudder or compass. Surely it is
possible for men and women of good will to dissect this overgrown problem
without being suspect as to motive.
Can anyone really challenge that welfare is so involved with the
day to day business of providing food and shelter it is barging ahead
year in, year out indeed decade after decade with no discernible
purpose or goal?
First, we should separate out those who, through no fault of their
own, must permanently depend on the rest of us. The aged, and disabled
who are unemployable should become permanent pensioners provided a
living income which to the best of our ability would include some of the
luxuries which make life worth living. The others the able-bodied
potentially employables should then be viewed as temporary dependents.
Our goal should be to reduce the need for welfare by making them
independent and self-supporting. Welfare should measure its success by
how much it shrinks each year---not by how much it grows.
Americans are a generous and humane people. Our people are deeply
conscious of man's obligation to help the aged, the disabled and those
other unfortunate citizens who, through no fault of their own, must
depend upon their fellow man.
From the earliest frontier days, we have always stood ready to
assist a neighbor in time of distress whether that neighbor lived across
the street or across the sea. Yet even in the darkest days of the
great depression, no one envisioned or advocated massive public welfare
as a permanent and consistently growing burden on society. F.D.R.
(Franklin Delano Roosevelt) made that point. In a message to Congress
36 years ago this month, he said: "Continued dependence upon relief
induces a spiritual and moral disintegration fundamentally destructive
to the national fibre. To dole out relief in this way is to administer
a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit."
- 3 -
National Press Club
The dependency yndrome that F.D.R. warned against is not just a
theory. It is a fact.
In California, and in other states, too, there are third and fourth
generation welfare families,
Whatever its original idealistic goal, the system that has evolved
has failed. The price of that failure has been high indeed in dollars
and in the sacrifice of America's proud heritage of self-reliance fc
every individual capable of self-support.
There is a great and growing hostility to welfare abroad in the
land. It stems not from a lack of concern for the truly needy. It stems
from a concern that some of those classified as "poor" are not truly
in need. Californians comprise about ten percent of the nation's
population but we have 16 percent of all those on welfare. Five-point
seven percent of Americans receive welfare. In California it is
percent. State and local costs for welfare prorate out at more than
double the national average.
This runaway growth in caseload and the excessive cost of welfare
cannot continue. It has become the single most compelling domestic
problem for states, for local governments and certainly for the federal
government.
The reason is simple enough. As the insatiable appetite of welfare
eats up more and more tax revenue, it becomes increasingly more difficult
for government to adequately finance other vital programs as well as the
level of support we should provide for the truly destitute who have no
other source of funds but welfare.
Some of the inconsistencies in welfare result from well-intentioned
court decisions. For example, the Supreme Court decision that states
no longer
have the authority to require a reasonable period of
residency as a condition for receiving welfare. The court said to do so
infringes on the recipients "right to travel." #
This is not just some abstract legal concept to be debated in law
journals. At our level of government, that ruling translates into a
costly and in my opinion most unfair burden. It also makes for
some ridiculous situations.
The Supreme Court says states must start paying welfare instantly
but Arizona is accused of being out of conformity with federal regulation
because Arizona ends welfare payments to recipients after they have been
absent from that state for three consecutive months. In the never-never
land of welfare regulations residency is one thing when you are arriving
and something else again after you have gone.
- 4
UIT to provide incentives -O encourage welfare
recipients to take jobs and presumably depart eventually from the
welfare rolls, a formula was created to allow augmentation of earnings
by at least partial welfare grants. No one quarrels with the good
intention but here is how it works.
In an actual case in California, a woman with four children draws
a welfare grant of $339. Then she gets a job paying $582 a month and h.
welfare grant is reduced by $29. So she earns $582, plus a welfare grai
of $310 for a total monthly income of $892. But another woman with four
children who does not work receives only $329, and is expected to feed
and clothe her children on that.
A kind of affluent, upper-crust class of recipients has been
created. In computing her eligibility, the federal formula prescribes
that $30 of her earnings are not counted (incentive), nor is one-third
of the remaining gross, deduction for tax, union dues and retirement,
transportation costs which can include payments on a new car, special
clothing allowance, child care costs and finally another $25 miscellaneou
incentive. In this case, she was rated as having an income of only $42
a month hence the $310 grant.
Common sense and simple fairness would indicate that cutting down
her grant would make it possible to increase the grant of someone who has
no outside earnings. But when California tried to do that, an injunction
was obtained by lawyers of an OEO neighborhood legal assistance group.
Now, if you are encouraging yourself by thinking this is an isolated
case, Los Angeles County estimates 17,000 recipients of welfare are fully
employed. Smaller Alameda County has 3,559 and says almost 400 have
earnings in excess of $600 a month. A survey involving almost one-half
of California recipients reveals that the earnings or outside income of
employed welfare recipients averages $346 a month and the average grant,
added to those earnings, is $186 for a total of $532 a month. Mothers
of dependent children who have no outside income receive average grants
of $207 only $21 more than the grant given to employed recipients.
A woman was granted welfare by reason of pregnancy. When the passing
months revealed her pregnancy, like the report of Mark Twain's death, was
highly exaggerated she was taken off welfare. A judge ordered her
reinstated. She is now in her 15th month of pregnancy and on welfare.
Complicating all these problems are regulations ordering confidentiality
of case records one California welfare director had to get a court orde
before his own employees would give him information on welfare recipients
It turned out a member of his reluctant employees was also the recipient
he had been inquiring about.
- 5 -
Case workers U er current interpretations of federal regulations
are forbidden to challenge or question the eligibility of applicants.
The same government that requires documentation and sworn affidavits of
its citizens regarding tax matters says demanding proof of a welfare
applicant demeans and humiliates him.
The same types of injustice exist in the area of welfare medical
assistance. Nationally, this federally-directed program is called
Medicaid. In California, it is known as Medi-Cal. In its first year of
operation (the year before I took office), Medi-Cal was already exceeding
its estimated cost. One out of 15 Californians was enrolled in the
program. Today, one out of nine are on Medi-Cal. It offers welfare
recipients an array of health care benefits, fully paid for by the
taxpayers, several times greater and more comprehensive than the
working citizen can afford for himself and his family.
Again the complex regulations cause problems. A teenage daughter
of even the most affluent parents becomes eligible for welfare and
Medi-Cal by reason of pregnancy. Medi-Cal then provides an abortion and
under those confidentiality rules, we who are providing this operation
are forbidden to tell the parents either that their daughter is pregnant
or that we are providing an abortion.
A divorcee or widow with children remarries and regardless of the
affluence of her husband, she and the children are eligible for aid to
dependent children and thus remain on Medi-Cal. If she subsequently has
children by her new husband, the costs are borne by the taxpayers.
The root cause of welfare is poverty. And the answer to much of
poverty is employment jobs, job development, job training and job
placement. Obviously, however, it is futile and even deceitful to demand
that able-bodied welfare recipients go to work if there are no jobs
available. While there are some legitimate job opportunities which
government can provide and even jogs on an interim basis in a public work
force, in the last analysis the private sector is the real provider of
jobs with a future.
Let us have an end to the demagoguery particularly in campaign
years which uses business and industry as a convenient whipping boy and
assails the motives of all who speak of encouraging business expansion.
The most important thing that can be done to solve the so-called
welfare syndrome and the best way to win the war on poverty is for
the nation and the states to embark on a period of economic expansion;
not an ersatz expansion fueled by the flames of inflation, but a sound,
honest drive to expand our economic capacities and expand the generative
and derivative forces of our free competitive enterprise system.
National Press Club
One of the popul questions making the rou. 3 today is "can we
afford the future?" Can we pay the costs of all the things that must
be done and can we afford many of the things we would like to do?
There are those who contend we can afford the future if we will
take more money from the citizen and his industry. In spite of past
failures, they hold that public indulgence should preempt personal
initiative.
We will not be able to afford the future or do the things we must
do, let alone the things we would like to do unless we allow the
people and their industry to retain more of what they earn. Only by
rebuilding personal and corporate risk capital reserves, only by
increasing personal savings and spending and investments will we be
able to provide the necessary jobs, resources, and tax revenues, and
build the future that others wonder if we can afford.
The basic reason for unemployment today is not that the private
sector is unequal to the task; one of the main reasons for most of our
economic problems today is that the private sector has been too often
harnessed and hobbled, and ham-strung in its ability to grow and create
new jobs and new job opportunities. If we are really going to win the
war on poverty, we must unleash the full dynamism of the free enterprise
system.
Now this is not a plea to turn the country over to big business and
return to the days of "laissez faire." Free enterprise is not a hunting
license and caveat emptor is totally unacceptable. But it is obvious
on the record: a dynamic, expanding economy, is the best answer to the
largest part of our unemployment and welfare problems.
Perhaps the single most important act President Nixon has taken to
alleviate the welfare problem recently was his call for liberalized rules
for tax deductions for depreciation of plant and equipment.
Those who challenge the President on this action would starve the
goose while demanding she lay more and bigger eggs. I have little
understanding of those in my own state who demand less spending on space
and defense and then demand the government do something about the
unemployment in the aerospace industry.
At government behest, following the advent of Sputnik, we built in
California probably the greatest pool of technical and skilled workers in
history.
- 7 -
National Press Club
We cannot share in the glory of the TFX but our people deserve a
lot of the credit for Mercury and Gemini and Apollo, and the Polaris,
not to mention the everyday marvels and benefits that spun-off from
these programs. But now, with cut-backs in defense and space programs
California has some 100,000 unemployed in these industries alone.
This, of course, is just one more example that government giveth
and government taketh away. There is no question that California
benefitted over the years by this federal spending. Many both wage-
earners and officeholders lulled themselves into a euphoric dream
of prolonged security.
It is like it is with narcotics the pusher may be primarily
responsible but the victim played a part also.
Still perhaps it is reasonable to suggest the federal government
allocate a certain portion of the funds shaved from defense to finance
readjustment programs. Research to find out how best we can put the
brains and skills and hands of these unemployed technicians to work
solving some of our contemporary and future problems pollution,
desalination, air traffic control, highway safety, health science,
economics, new towns, and the many other imperatives of today and
tomorrow. Certainly we should think of this great pool of technical
skill and talent as a resource to be conserved.
To simply view these thousands upon thousands of unemployed men and
women as casualties of war whether it be space or Vietnam
is
totally unacceptable.
There is somewhat of a parallel between this current period of
adjustment and the admittedly more : severe adjustments which followed
World War II.
At that time, as you may recall, Jesse Jones was called upon to guide
the conversion from a war to a peace-time economy. When he took the job
he learned that there were already some blueprints for conversion,
blueprints which called for the building of bigger bureaucracies so that
government would do everything and get into everything and perpetuate many
of the emergency functions it had assumed during the war.
Working with and through American business and industry, Jesse Jones
released the dynamic power of the free enterprise system. There was no
depression, no gloom and doom there was a spectacular readjustment
that sent America to new heights.
- 8 -
Press Club
Granted there not now the same pent-up mand for consumer
goods that existed after World War II, but there is, nevertheless, a
very real demand for jobs and progress and services which can best be
met and funded through a dynamic economic enterprise.
This is a time for disciplined imagination and responsible dynamism,
a time for governments, corporations, organized labor and individual
citizens to recapture and reapply the power of America's free economic
system. Then we will win the war on poverty, solve welfare and many of
our other problems.
And our disenchanted sons and daughters will be better off if they
see us setting an example of reasoned debate without name calling and
angry vilification. Who knows we might even bring back common
courtesy.
######
(NOTE: Since Governor Reagan speaks from notes, there may be changes in,
or additions to, the above quotes. However, the governor will
stand by the above quotes._
- 9
y
42/,
THE
WILL
OFFICE OF THE GOVER R
FOR P.M.'s RE
\SE
Sacramento, California
Contact: Paul Beck
445-4571
1-27-71
EXCERPTS OF REMARKS BY GOVERNOR RONALD REAGAN
NATIONAL SAND AND GRAVEL ASSN. AND READY MIXED CONCRETE ASSN. CONVENTION
San Francisco
January 27, 1971
I just returned from a trip to Washington, D.C. and have to say
it is a great place to visit but I wouldn't want to live there.
A freeway jam in California is better than drifting down the
river---even the Potomac or anywhere else. Despite those freeway jokes,
Californians are proud of this state's tremendous network of highways.
Our modern transportation system has played an important part in making
California the nation's number one state economically, and in almost
every other way of measuring greatness.
This administration is keenly aware of your industry's contributions
to both the highway system and to the state's economic progress. In
these last four years, the state has added more than a thousand (1,041)
miles of freeway and multilane expressway to California's highway
system, including 672 miles of interstate roads. In that same period,
1,397 miles of highways have been resurfaced and we have completed
970 highway safety projects. And in so doing, we have saved the lives
of our citizens.
While the traffic fatality rate continues to climb in the rest of
the nation, the mileage death rate in California continues to go down
each year. A great part of the credit is really yours. The skills,
the manpower and the engineering ability of the construction industries
has helped us save these lives by meeting the need for safe, modern
high speed freeways and highways.
The same type of construction genius shortly will be completing
one of the greatest engineering feats of all time, the California Water
Project.
In both these massive endeavors, it must be noted that we are
keeping faith with those who are concerned over environmental protection
and we shall continue that as a top priority consideration. I am sure
you are aware of the tremendous efforts the state has undertaken in
recent years to protect the building of highways and other public
projects.
We share a common concern about the future of our state and our
nation. The prosperity of your industries and the economic well-being
of our citizens is dependent upon maintaining a creative partnership
between industry and government.
-1-
Two months ago, our newly-created construction industry (Labor-
Management Task Fort-) began seeking ways to stimulate building activity
and employment in a field that has been severely affected by the
national economic slump and the long-term decline in federally-supported
construction projects.
This 28-member committee, representing labor, the construction
industry and state government, is exploring various means of achieving
these four main goals:
1--Alleviating unemployment in the construction industry.
2--Examining possible ways to obtain increased federal financing
for construction in California.
3--Developing ways to stimulate general heavy construction in
this state; and
4--Improving communications among labor, management and government
so that we might work together to find solutions to our mutual problems
in the construction field.
The four-member steering group that evolved held its first meeting
last month and spelled out two major tasks for the full committee.
First, the committee was to verify that no available governmental
construction funds are idle in California. This has been done.
Second, the working committee is to define in detail the major
areas of construction unemployment, by locale and by building trades.
This is being done now.
The next step will be to examine ways of channeling our available
construction capital into the areas and the building trades which are
experiencing the most severe unemployment.
The steering committee of this project includes State Public Works
Director James A. Moe, Deputy Director George Smith of the Department
of Industrial Relations, Al Clem of Operating Engineers Local No. 3
and Dick Munn of the Associated General Contractors.
While there is no single solution, this group will be of great
help in defining more clearly the major causes of the construction
slowdown and suggesting realistic solutions.
The state already has taken a number of actions to stimulate the
construction industry and there are some encouraging signs of a pickup
of building activity, particularly in the housing industry.
-2-
We have worked ith federal officials on I grams to encourage
home-ownership, including expanding the means of financing home
purchases. And we have joined with private industry and the federal
government in mustering the economic and technological resources that
will be necessary to meet the national goal of 26 million new and
rehabilitated housing units by the end of this decade.
The efforts of the State Department of Housing and Community
Development have been instrumental in securing an Operation Breakthrough
prototype site in Sacramento to demonstrate one form of innovative
housing. This project is one of two west of the Mississippi and one
of nine in the country.
During the next year, they will begin an evaluation and summary
of the housing available to all economic segments in California. This
has never been done before and will include developing housing
production goals for 1972 in California and for five years in the
future.
In Washington, I had an opportunity to reiterate California's
grave concern about the U.S. Transportation Department's policy of
withholding federal highway funds needed to complete the federal inter-
state system and related road projects.
We favor a stepped up effort to release these funds. During the
height of the national effort to control inflation, when President
Nixon called upon private industry and the states for voluntary reduc-
help
tions in construction to/fight inflation, California responded with
immediate cooperation.
There is evidence indicating the worst of the inflationary cycle
is over. Now the most compelling economic problem is the under-utiliza-
tion of industry's productive capacity, especially in the construction
industry which is so vitally affected by the slowdown in distributing
highway trust funds.
During the final quarter of 1970, the California Division of
Highways had a total of 421 construction contracts underway with a
total value of $994 million. While this represents a substantial
amount of activity, it was the first time in almost two years that the
value of contracts underway had slipped below the $1 billion mark.
The balance in the National Highway Trust Fund is estimated at
some $2.8 billion of which our share is about $250 million.
If this money is released in the orderly manner that Congress
intended, it could provide employment for approximately 18,500 workers
in California.
-3-
The basic reasd for unemployment today is .ot any inherent
weakness in the private sector or our national economy.
The
problem is not that the private sector of the economy is incapable of
providing sufficient job opportunities. Nor is there a lack of
legitimate needs to fill, things to build or services to expand to
achieve the great dreams we all have for the future.
But I do not share the view of some in government that we can or
afford that future if government takes more of the people's resources
in taxes and more from our industries.
We can only afford the future if government's share is steadily
reduced to a more reasonable level. And this, ladies and gentlemen,
cannot be done unless government comes to grips with the single,
greatest problem confronting the state, the local governments and the
federal government. That problem is the constantly escalating costs
of welfare and Medi-Cal.
Welfare as it has evolved in our national, state and local public
assistance programs has no goal. It offers no reasonable prospect for
reducing a financial burden that has become intolerable and in
that sense, it is a disaster. The case for reforming welfare does not
require further debate--the time has come for action.
Let me emphasize that this does not mean turning away from our
responsibility to the truly needy--the elderly who need assistance and
the blind and the disabled--the people with legitimate claims for
help who have no one to turn to but us. These are not the areas of
welfare where the problems and the abuses exist.
Much is being said these days about the increase in welfare being
due to the present economic slump. But we are deluding ourselves if we
think the welfare problem will be solved or even eased with the return
of good times.
During a year of virtually full employment (1968-69) when the
unemployment rate in California was at its lowest rate in 15 years, the
total number of Aid to Dependent Children recipients went up 25.2 pe
et
Five years ago, one of 15 Californians was receiving Medi-Cal;
today it is one out of nine. And this program provides benefits far
more generous than the working citizen can provide for himself or his
family.
These two areas of welfare--the AFDC program and Medi-Cal--have
caused the greatest increase in costs. And in these two areas, there is
the greatest potential for reducing costs by totally
restructuring the entire system and eliminating the abuses that now
One of our first goals is to clearly distinguish between the
employable and the unemployable. The aged, and those whose
disabilities are permanent, should be removed from the present welfare
structure and put on an automated pension system.
Their monthly checks should be sent to them automatically and
revised periodically to reflect cost-of-living increases. There is no
need to maintain a costly welfare bureaucracy to administer this type
of pension program. We don't need social workers dropping in on the
elderly to see if they are still growing old.
STRENGTHEN FAMILY RESPONSIBILITY
This would leave only those adult recipients who are potentially
employable, but who for whatever reason do not have a marketable job
skill to take into the job market. We have proposed they be transferred
to the jurisdiction of the Department of Human Resources Development.
There, the full efforts of this Department's job training, job
development and job placement programs should be coordinated with
rehabilitation efforts to put every able-bodied adult welfare recipient
into productive employment.
Hopefully, the bulk of these placements would be in the private
sector. But in the interim, able-bodied recipients should be directed
into programs where this unused manpower could be used constructively.
We are asking all levels of government--state, county and local to
catalogue all those things in the public area which we are not now
doing possibly because of lack of funds or manpower.
The whole field of environmental improvement and protection is
just such an area.
No one objects when volunteer crews of concerned citizens or
students form work details and do something to restore the beauty of
the countryside.
Those of you who were in the service must remember those special
details. If the services can require our soldiers and sailors to
productively utilize their spare time to help clean up their environment,
no one should object that it is too humiliating or demeaning to ask
able-bodied welfare recipients to refurbish parks and trails and
otherwise make a constructive contribution to society.
-5-
Now, such public type jobs should not displace any present
employment patterns and certainly there should be safeguards to prevent
such a program from becoming a way of obtaining cheap labor. That is
why, as a former labor leader myself, I am confident that organized labor
would be willing to help government pin-point those tasks that able-
bodied welfare recipients could perform without interrupting the
normal job market. Instead of the demeaning spiritual destruction O₂
the dole, such a program of public work would give able-bodied welfare
recipients the pride of knowing that they were doing something
constructive to make California a better place.
I am under no illusion that undertaking this massive shift of
direction in welfare will be easy.
It will require the support of our citizens and the cooperation
of the federal government. Welfare spending and welfare abuses cannot
be controlled unless states are given the flexibility to undertake
pilot reform projects and the administrative authority to eliminate
the loopholes that permit some of the ridiculous abuses that now occur.
I use the word "ridiculous" advisedly. No word better describes
some of the absurd conflicts that tie the hands of states trying to
control welfare abuses.
The court rulings that deal with narrow points of law and the
federal welfare regulations that seem so logical and so reasonable to
the bureaucracy in Washington look different from this side of the
Sierras.
Right now, California and some other states have become embroiled
in a running controversy with the federal government over what has
Lecome known as the "conformity" issue. The dictionary defines
conformity as action "in accordance with some specified standards or
authority."
By conformity, the federal government means that we must live up to
an established standard of assistance. The question is: Does California
live up to such a standard?
We rank No. 1 in average aid to the blind and our monthly payments
are $55 per month above the national average. We rank second among all
states in average aid to the disabled and our payments are $42 above the
national average.
We rank third in average aid to the aged with payments $38 above
the monthly national average, more than any other major state. And we
are 15th in aid to dependent children with monthly payments $5 above
the national average. We rank No. 1 among all the 50 states in the
Now I suppose we are "out of conformity" if we pay more than any
other state in one fare category, more than states in another,
more than 48 in a third, and more than 35 other states in the fourth
major category of public assistance? But this isn't exactly the way
the government has found us "out of conformity."
I am sure you recall the famous U.S. Supreme Court decision two
years ago which declared that California and 39 other states no longer
could require a reasonable period of residency in order to qualify for
welfare benefits. The court said this would infringe on the welfare
recipient's right to travel.
During the coming fiscal year about 59,600 people who would not
have qualified for benefits under California's previous one-year
residency law will be on the welfare rolls. By the end of 1971-72,
the residency ruling will have added another $160 million to the cost
of welfare since the impact of that court ruling was first felt in
California. Again the word "ridiculous" becomes appropriate.
Arizona also found itself accused of being "out of conformity"
recently, not because it doesn't pay the "instant welfare" that the
Supreme Court decision requires it does that. Arizona is accused of
being out of conformity because it stops paying 90 days after the
welfare recipient becomes a non-resident!
In that strange and complex world of federal welfare regulation,
residency is one thing when you are arriving and something else again
after you have gone.
Other conflicts are just as absurd. Several years ago, a laudable
effort was initiated to offer incentives to welfare recipients to
encourage them to take jobs and hopefully to cease being public depend-
ents. The intent was good, but the result of the federal formula that
was devised to accomplish the goal has become a legal loophole that
permits incredible abuses.
The effect of this loophole gives the working welfare recipient
a better and generous schedule of allowable deductions than the working
taxpayer receives. And it results in an unfair discrimination between
welfare recipients who have other income and those who do not.
A recent survey involving almost one-half of California's welfare
recipients showed that the earnings or outside income of those welfare
recipients who work averages about $346 per month. The average welfare
grant, added to those earnings, is $186 or a total of $532 a month.
Yet mothers of dependent children who have no outside income receive
-7-
average grants of $2 only $21 more than the ount of aid given to
employed recipients. That is the practical result of this complex
federal welfare regulation.
We think simple fairness suggests that the amount of the welfare
aid given to recipients with outside income should be reduced to make
it possible to increase the grant allowed to those who have no outside
earnings. Yet when California tried to do just that, lawyers for an
OEO neighborhood legal group obtained an injunction to prevent it.
MEDI-CAL
The federally-financed program of Medicaid (which we call Medi-Cal
here in California) contains similar examples of glaring injustice to
the truly needy citizen and to the taxpayers who finance the program.
The Medi-Cal system was adopted before I took office and it
started going into the red that same year. We have had difficulty keep-
ing up with its soaring costs every since because of a rising caseload
and also because Medi-Cal offers a far more generous array of medical
benefits than the average citizen can afford for his own family. In
addition to the basic health care services (physician and hospital
costs and so Medi-Cal also must pay for such benefits as occupations
therapy, chiropractors, dental care, optometrists, home health agency
services, psychologists- a list of more than 20 categories for which
the recipient pays nothing. Most private health care plans---the types
which cover you and your employees and most our citizens offer one-
half to two-thirds fewer benefits than Medi-Cal. And in many of these
private plans, the person receiving the care must make at least a
small copayment for the services rendered. Medi-Cal recipients pay
nothing.
The result of that is predictable. In fiscal year 1970, the cost
of Medi-Cal on a per capita basis was about $517. During that same
year, the per capita expenditure for health care in the United States
as a whole amounted to about $312 per citizen, or about $205 less than
what Medi-Cal costs.
One of our goals in California is to place the same type of user
responsibility on those who benefit from Medi-Cal. This would include
some sort of reasonable system of copayment or deductible, but including,
of course, whatever realistic provisions necessary to allow for emergency
or catastrophic illness.
-8-
To those who say that requiring a small token copayment is cruel
or unreasonable, the uestion must be asked: Is ( it reasonable to ask
the working citizen to finance a better and more comprehensive program
of health care services for welfare recipients than he can afford for
himself and his own family? We have copayment in other public health
care programs such as Medicare.
Some type of modest copayment is necessary to eliminate over-
utilization and to bring Medi-Cal costs under reasonable control. Even
the British system of nationalized medicine found that it is necessary
to impose a small token copyament to control over-utilization and to
avoid bankruptcy.
We will need federal authority to implement this. We will also
need federal authority to eliminate the loopholes that make the present
welfare system so unjust and so unmanageable. Confusing and conflicting
regulations must be changed or clarified, by administrative decision if
possible- by congressional action or court challenge, if necessary.
We must establish realistic eligibility standards so that only the
truly needy may qualify for assistance. We must establish a realistic
ceiling on the amount of earnings or other assets a family may have and
still qualify for welfare. In all of these reforms we must always aim
to strengthen family responsibility as the basic element in society.
If we do not, we will be failing both the taxpayer and the truly
needy. It is this last group the blind, the needy elderly among us
and the disabled--who are the real victims of our unworkable welfare
system. Because our resources must be stretched so thin to accommodate
more and more on the welfare rolls, we are not able to provide all that
we would like to those who need help the most.
I have told the legislature in California that we have reached a
time for choosing. We can meet the fiscal problems caused by welfare
spending or we can stand firm and demonstrate the courage to cut the
size and cost of government. We must fight for these realistic reforms
because welfare is eroding this state's ability to finance all the
other services that government is called upon to perform.
The constantly escalating price of welfare is sapping our ability
to adequately meet the costs of education, recreation and park
development, environmental protection, economic development and
transportation.
Last year--for the first time--the state had to use some of the
truck tax revenues to help balance the General Fund budget and meet the
increased cost of welfare and school aid. Previously, this tax had been
reserved for highway uses.
I have informed our legislature that I will submit a budget this
year that can be balanced without a tax increase. Please note that
I said can be balanced. To accomplish this will require some hard,
-9-
realistic decisions ( welfare, Medi-Cal and a t gh stand against
unnecessary cost increases in those areas of government which have not
been getting a maximum return for every tax dollar spent.
We will never be able to provide all that we would like to invest
in the essential tasks of government until we bring welfare spending
under control. Unless this burden is checked, we face the prospect
of a tax increase this year, next year and every year. So does every
other level of government.
The ever-increasing tax load necessary to support welfare's
insatiable demand for public funds has become an intolerable drag on
government and the economy. Permanent economic prosperity cannot be
achieved until government reduces the share it takes from our citizens
and lets those who produce keep more of what they earn.
It is the individual's earnings--invested in personal savings or
expenditures of his choice--which fuel the private enterprise system.
And it is that system which provides the permanent jobs that keep
people permanently off the unemployed lists and the welfare rolls.
# # #
(NOTE: Since the Governor speaks from notes, there may additions to,
or changes in, the above quotes. However, the Governor will
stand by the above quotes.)
-10-
18%
OFFICE OF THE GOVERN
RELEASE: UPUN DELIVERY
Sacramento, California
APPROXIMATELY 12 NOON
Contact:
Paul Beck
JANUARY 31, 1971.
445-4571
1-31-71
EXCERPTS OF REMARKS BY GOVERNOR RONALD REAGAN
to Convention of RSCCC, Memorial Auditorium
Sacramento
January 31, 1971
As you can well imagine my mind has been turning back to that first
time we met under these same circumstances four years ago. Then we were
in the first month of a brand new administration. Now it is the first
month of a second term and we are all a little older, a little wiser and
still a few votes short in the legislature.
If I seem a little more subdued now than I was on that first occasion
it has nothing to do with the passage of years. It is only that self
confidence is what you have before you understand the situation. I have
greater understanding now of how George Blanda feels when he laces on his
kicking shoe.
But like George Blanda I have an abiding love for the game. Maybe
at this moment I should be drawing a parallel with someone else---a
freshman at Notre Dame in the days of Knute Rockne. The squad was so big
on opening day of football practice that Rock decided to thin it out in
a rather primitive manner. He lined them up in two lines facing each
other and put a soccer ball down between them. Then he explained that
they would loosen up by trying to kick the ball over each others goal
line. And he made it clear that in the process a few shins might get
kicked but football called for courage so that should not stop them.
Then he looked down and the ball had disappeared. He said, "all right
where is it who tock the soccer ball?" The pint-sized freshman said,
"never mind the ball Rock--when do we start kicking?"
We need to remind ourselves that even though we are up to our belly
in alligators we came here to drain the swamp.
Some of us here owe a great deal to the rest of you for the unselfish
dedication and hard work which made it possible for us to be in the
starting line-up. We have all been through a great deal together. We
have known defeat---indeed lived with it when it seemed too much to bear,
And we have known victory not first on election day but in the triumph
of the ideas we share.
- 1 -
RSCCC Convention
)
With all the election post mortems there has been a strange silence
about one facet of the 1970 race. Why is it that when they count and
recount noses of winners and losers trying so hard to establish whether
the trend was liberal or conservative they don't compare what it was the
candidate said?
Our struggles of the last few years have produced more than we know.
With very few exceptions our opponents were running on our platform.
And the exceptions in most instances were not elected.
To paraphrase a one-time Republican presidential candidate whose
philosophy was more in evidence in 1970 than it was in 1964--in viewing
our opponent's campaign utterances we could say "In our hearts we know
they were right." Of course, it will be interesting to match performance
with promise.
So everything did not turn out exactly the way we wanted. We are
told one of our campaign stalwarts, Vice President Agnew, failed in his
effort I guess it is true Albert Gore and Charlie Goodell told me
it was. If we played out the script the political pundits have been
writing since election day we would move for adjournment and spend the
next four years saying "please."
When we entered the decade of the 60s. only one of the six
constitutional offices was held by a Republican, 11 of the 40 seats in
the state senate and 28 of the 80 assembly seats. Now we enter the
decade of the 70s. with five of the six constitutional offices, 19
senators and 37 assemblymen. And a Republican occupies the White House.
No that is not the total we need to accomplish all the goals we have
laid out for ourselves and which have evidently earned the approval of
the people. But if we stand together we have a veto power which can make
impossible a repeat of the disgraceful gerrymanders of the 60s.
Thousands of Californians are still being cheated of their correct
proportional share of legislative and congressional representation as a
result of a cynically and deliberately contrived imbalance. One only
has to look at the near sweep in statewide offices and the entirely
different result when votes are counted by districts to see what they
accomplished. In this last election 48 percent of the vote cast in the
senate races was for Republican candidates but we only won 37 percent
of the races.
- 2 -
RSCCC Convention
Nine of the districts with the largest population are represented
by Republicans. Nine of the smallest by Democrats and several of these
campaigned the loudest in favor of "one man one vote." Of course they
like to know in advance how that one man intends to cast his one vote.
A Republican congressman is a "shoo in" in California's largest
congressional district but a Democrat holds the seat in the smallest
district which has less than half the population of the other.
Large communities of particular ethnic groups like our fine citizens
of Mexican descent have been gerrymandered and cut up so they have no
chance to choose either legislative or congressional voices representative
of their particular problems. This time re-apportionment must correct
that injustice.
As the number onestate we will increase our congressional
delegation by five the largest in the nation. Those five seats are
not political plums to be awarded one party or the other. They are
opportunities to provide representation for Californians who share
geographic and community interests. They can have this only if we all
stand together when the crunch comes. Let one of us peal off and try to
go it alone and we will see the end of our chance to influence the
course of California ever again in the lifetime of most of us. I have
faith that will not happen.
In only one of the last four years did we have a majority in the
legislature. Even then our lead was so narrow it disappeared if someone
got held up in traffic. But let me give you just one revealing example
of what it means to hold that lead. For four years I have sent budgets
upstairs as the law requires. The only time I did not have to blue
pencil tens of millions of dollars or even a single penny out of the
budget sent back to me by the legislature was the one time that
legislature was under Republican leadership. Last year the legislature
returned a budget no bigger than the one I had submitted and it was signed
This week I will submit another budget. Seldom has one had so much
advance billing. Predictions have been made that it will be out of balance
by as much as $750 million. And it would be 12 we accepted the premise
those who believe government has no need to cutb its spending, that its
wants as well as its needs must be funded and that welfare is sacrosanct
in all its profligacy and its failure. Personally I reject that premise
as false and totally unacceptable.
- 3 -
RSCCC Convention
I will submit a budget balanced by virtue of a reduction in
government not an increase in the tax burden borne by our people. There
will be resistance and cries of anguish as I said in the State-of-the-
State message. There will be some reductions and postponements we would
rather not have made. But government, like the family, has moments when
it must defer and cut down until times are better. The key to balancing
the budget will be the legislature's willingness to join in reforming
welfare and Medi-Cal. This is a task long overdue and one which should
be undertaken even if there were no fiscal problems. It is a misuse of
public funds to continue the inmorality of these programs which victimize
there who pay and those who are most in need.
One of our opponents in his criticism of this policy stated as
clearly 23 anyone could the basic difference in philosophy separating
many of us in these recent years. He said the governor believed government
should take the revenues provided by the people and apportion them out
among the various departments and agencies of government as far as they
would go. And this he said was just backwards. In his view, we in
government are supposed to decide what the people should have and then
tax them for whatever the cost will be.
I am content to let the people decide which of us is doing things
backwards. I doubt there is any partisanship among them in this matter.
They have told the pollsters in recent months Gallup, Harris and the
others--they have come to the and of their patience, that the cost of
government must come down.
Typical is this letter from a fellow Californian:
"Dear Sir:
"It is only a Here occasion that I complain to anyone about my lot
in life, let alone to a public official. But you see as I review my
troubles it becomes graphically clear to me that a very substantial part
of them are caused Isv public officials.
"I am 42 years old, My wife 38. We have six children, and I make
$18,000 a year. We can't afford to send our kids to college and we hav
very little savings " That is easy to understand when you consider his
direct taxes lest your approached $4,000 He yes on: There are some
complaints from one of the majority--- adjust -Y that = don't believe is
going to remain silent much longer. I'm tired of paying taxes to
education to enable the recipients, students and faculty, to tell me I'm
stupid and can't understand their attitudes and aspirations,
- 4 -
RSCCC Convention
"I'm tired of providing aid to dependent children when there are
170,000 nonpaying fathers in Los Angeles County alone. I'm tired of
paying for welfare when nothing is done to get those people to work or
off the dole. I'm tired of paying it to people who then appear on TV
to tell me I'm a dirty slob for not giving them more." Possibly he
referred to a representative of the National Welfare Rights organization
who appeared before a committee of Congress and demanded:
"Everyone in this country has a right to share the wealth. The mone
has gone into the pockets of the middle class." She added that if she
did not get her share they would disrupt this state, this country and
this capitol. No one on the committee pointed out to her that every
dollar going into those middle class pockets was earned by the middle
class hands of middle class people without whom this whole system would
grind to a halt and those middle class citizens are already in danger
of becoming the new poor.
But back to the letter incidentally the writer has never even
collected unemployment insurance. He spent six years in the Navy and he
has a university degree. He concludes: "I'm tired of my allowance of
two six packs a week, tired of telling my wife of 22 years we can't
afford an evening at a nice restaurant. I'm really tired not because
I don't want to pay my fair share. I'm not tired of working or of doing
my part to make this nation a better place for all of us. It's just that
millions of people like me have paid our dues why is there no reward?
We till the earth, why is there no harvest?"
I don't intend to answer his questions by increasing his taxes.
Nor do I believe he is in the mood to hear profound theorizing. Not too
long ago John Kenneth Galbraith spoke from his lofty tower about the
horrendous problems of "Fun City, " whose budget incidentally is a billion
dollars bigger than the budget for the whole state of California. He
said, "There are few of New York City's problems that would not be solved
if you just doubled the city's budget," Well they tried that five
years ago the city budget was $3.8 billion and now it is more than
doubled $7.7 billion and somehow all the problems remain. of course,
things are better for some they 're putting welfare recipients up at
the Waldorf. Double the budget again and they could make it public
housing.
- 5 -
RSCCC Convention
We have talked of unity and we have achieved unity and we have
election victories to prove it. But winning elections is only the
beginning of the battle. Do we realize yet that we are engaged in a
counter revolution? That we are trying to achieve a fundamental change
in people's relationship with government? That more people are going to
learn to stand on their own and like it? Some who have known government
subsidy must instead begin to pay commensurate with their ability S' we
can concentrate on those in real need. At the same time we must increase
the share of the people's earnings they are allowed to dispose of as only
they see fit. As the new Prime Minister of England said, "this is a
task not just for the period of one government but for a generation."
You are needed now more than you have ever been needed. We go
beyond unity in election campaigns. We must have your faith. When many
snouts are threatened with forcible withdrawal from the public trough in
makes waves. A whole cult of social scientists, sociologists and
economists long in power are howling with rage and pain as we seek to
reverse the course they have charted for this nation, indeed the world.
We must trust each other with the understanding that disagreements
over tactics and strategy cast no shadow whatsoever on our mutual
dedication to our revolutionary goals.
This will not be easy. Constant criticism can erode our confidence
like water wearing away stone. Since the last election there has been
the repeated refrain that Republican leaders were intemperate in their
rhetoric and, therefore, are responsible for a polarization among our
people. Try as we will to resist eventually a tiny doubt edges its way
into our thinking. Never mind that we cannot actually recall an
inflammatory statement for which we should feel apologetic we feel
apologetic.
But what of the callous, bad taste remark directed against the
vice president by one of the former stalwarts of "Camelot" "If the
Vice President doesn't like our young people let that Greek go back to
Greece." Or the distinguished president of an ivy league university who
said "Agnew and Nixon are political hucksters. Their campaign speeches
raised a stench that makes the traditional red herring smell like a rose.
The recent Nobel prize winner in economics, Professor Paul Samuelson,
in his acknowledgement of the honor used the occasion to ungraciously
attack President Nixon. He said, "The President should rejoin the human
race and join the campaign tn get the economy moving again."
- 6 -
RSCCC Convention
Economics is a. inexact science which possibly explains Professor
Samuelson winning an award. He authored a textbook called "Economics.
An Introductory Analysis" in 1948 which is still used on our campuses.
In the book in 1948 he wrote, "If price increases could be held down to
less than 5 percent a year such a mild, steady, inflation need not cause
too great a concern." In 1955 the third edition of his book came out wit
one minor change that mild, steady 5 percent inflation had gone down to
3 percent. The fourth edition came out three years later and the figure
was changed to 2 percent and by 1961 he was saying it shouldn't exceed
1½ percent.
As the editor of the Boston Herald said: "If Dr. Samuelson reserves
the right to recalculate the danger of inflation every time he brings out
a new edition of his textbook he ought to be charitable enough to not
read the President out of the human race for his miscalculating the same
danger. "
Of course, there is no real evidence that the President has
miscalculated in what is obviously a most delicate and dangerous task.
In 1966, 1967 and 1968 the previous administration chose to afford
guns and butter and no tax increase to pay for this luxury as the
Vietnam conflict was escalated into a major war. In those three years
there was full employment-- situation which even Lord Keynes said should
be used to bring on a balanced budget and a surplus. Instead Washington
piled up more than a $40 billion deficit and inflation doubled, tripled
and almost quadrupled. That upward spiral has been slowed by this
president's decision to take on inflation. It has not been halted or
reversed because you just cannot do that without a cataclysmic crash.
He must walk the line between depression or re-igniting the fire of
inflation.
Those who were part of the government and the policy that caused the
problem are now carping critics of the economic slump and the unemployment
the price they did not have the courage to pay after they had touched off
the inflationary flame in the first place.
No one looks lightly on the plight of a willing worker unemployed
through no fault of his own. But sometimes it seems the problem of
unemployment like wine has vintage years when it is of greater interest
than at other times. It makes you a little nostalgic for those days of
the Kennedy administration when unemployment averaged 5.7 percent and yet
in two years of frequent presidential prece conferences not one question
was ever directed to the president about unemployment.
- 7 -
RSCCC Convention
Let us ask thos who complain of the temporary dislocation brought
on by the effort to curb inflation and the additional readjustment as the
war is wound down what would our problem be if Richard Nixon had not
had the courage to take both the anti-inflation action and the policy of
Vietnamization?
I was in Washington last week. There is always a fringe benefit
in visiting with the president you don't feel quite so sorry for
yourself after you see his problems. It was the time of the State-of-
the-Union address. Since then all the voices of derision and disagreement
have been raised. But look beyond their words to the real reason for
their discomfort. He called for revolution in a consistent reiteration
of the policies he espoused in the campaign of 1968.
He asked for reorganization of the top heavy governmental structure.
A return of resources and power to local and state governments which in
just this first step he has proposed would reduce the bureaucracy in
Washington by an amount equal to the whole structure of California's
state government. He has asked that the defenses of this nation
neglected and weakened under McNamara be brought up equal to the need.
He asked for environmental protection and new parks. And the consistent
note in all the criticism of these perfectly logical goals is "we
must not let him have them." As if he were asking for personal favors
instead of things beneficial to all the people.
He is opposed by a majority in Congress and 54 presidential candidate
in the Senate. Last week a few of them were here in Sacramento. They
had a wet finger in the air testing the direction of the wind. Then
uttered statements so silly you have to assume they did the testing with
their mittens on.
Dare they look back two short years? Five hundred and fifty
thousand young Americans were in Vietnam and hundreds of them were dying
each week. The South Vietnamese were incapable of taking over their own
defense nor did it seem likely they ever could. Today American forces
have been reduced by half and casualties to a tenth. The South
Vietnamese army is rapidly becoming one of the most formidable forces in
Southeast Asia and by May American combat troops will be down to 60.000
Two years ago American cities were under constant threat of riot
and pillage and our campuses were focal points of disorder and
disruption. Who will dare say there has not been 2. change?
- 8 -
RSCCC Convention
)
Should there be mistrust of this administration or is it that
mistrust in government was created in an earlier time and people just
have not come to realize that a change has taken place.
Those things I have mentioned that we would like to do in Sacramento
and those goals the president has announced for his administration in
Washington can be accomplished in only one way. The people must raise
their voices. They must make it plain their demand is for change and
consolidation decentralization and expanded freedom not partisan
bickering or bureaucratic power hoarding. A native America has had it
with new deals, fair deals or deals of any kind.
Several years ago a refugee from the Nazis who had become a great
and beloved teacher in our land said of the great society "I don't
want their great society. All I want is the American Republic where
public matters are public and private matters are private, never the
other way around."
In our meeting last week I told the president it was my intention
to head a delegation of California Republicans at the National Convention
representing every segment of our party and pledged to his renomination
and re-election. I hope that meets with your approval.
#######
(NOTE: Since the Governor speaks from notes, there may be additions to,
or changes in, the above quotes. However, the governor will
stand by the above quotes.
9
-
2/19
OFFICE OF THE GOVERNO
FOR RELEASE 'RIDAY P.M.'s
Sacramento, California
Contact:
Paul Beck
445-4571
2-18-71
EXCERPTS OF REMARKS BY GOVERNOR RONALD REAGAN
GOVERNOR'S INDUSTRIAL SAFETY CONFERENCE
Biltmore Hotel, Los Angeles
February 19, 1971
Challenge never has stopped the people of California. Despite the
cries of gloom and doom from the Chicken Littles of our time, California
still is experiencing phenomenal growth in almost every aspect of its
economy.
Vast changes continue to bring sweeping improvements and expansion
to our manufacturing and service industries. This progress and these
material blessings also bring problems for those whose responsibility it is
to work for greater safety on the job, on the freeway and in the home.
Every industrial accident is a tragedy--to the victim, to his family,
his co-workers and to society. In 1969, the most recent year for which
we have complete statistics, there were 218,000 disabling industrial
injuries in California and 759 industrial fatalities.
The loss from these accidents in human terms cannot be calculated.
But the financial impact of the wage earner's loss of life and limb can be
measured in dollars. The injuries and deaths from industrial accidents
in California for 1969 will cost more than $350 million in Workmen's
Compensation Insurance benefits. And that is only the direct impact.
Counting indirect costs for lost production time, damage to
equipment and other such factors, our expertstell us that California's
financial loss because of work injuries and deaths in 1969 probably
exceeds one billion dollars or about $50 for every man, woman and child
in the state.
But all of this is only part of the story. The more agonizing cost
is in human suffering, the grief and heartache, the homes disrupted
because of a needless accident or death.
It may never be possible to completely eliminate the hazards of
life. But we have made considerable progress in eliminating unnecessary
isks and in learning to avoid or prevent those hazardous situations
which can bring injury or death.
-1-
Industrial Safety Co erence
California has been a pioneer in developing effective safety codes
and procedures and the results show up in the statistical tables. Our
industrial injury rate has been lowered by more than 25 percent in the
past 20 years. And I am proud that some of the most spectacular progress
has occurred during the last four years. California's all-time low
injury rate of less than 31 (30.8) injuries per thousand workers was
established in 196'. This was followed in 1968 by the second best rate
in the state's industrial history. There was a slight fractional rise in
the injury rate in 1969. But preliminary figures indicate that a new
all-time low will be established in 1970, possibly as low as 30.5. Injurie
for the year 1970 will total about 5,000 less than for 1969.
These gains are important. Every accident that doesn't happen save
immeasurable human suffering. It also produces substantial dollar saving.
in our economy.
At meetings such as these we can all work constructively for a common
objective. Both labor and management are interested in safe working
conditions because each suffers when a preventable accident occurs.
Government and the private sector have a common goal.
Laws and regulations, as necessary as they are, are only standard
against which specific work situations and conditions can be compared and
evaluated.
The official regulations are merely the framework upon which the
rest of an effective safety program is built. They contain the letter of
the law, but to implement the law in a constructive manner requires the
cooperation of men and women like you who are here today. It is your
daily task to carry out the spirit of the laws designed to protect you
and your employees and co-workers. Our job in state government is only
to help.
We in state government recognize that safety is not something that
requires our attention only during working hours. Accidents are not
limited to the job or to the age brackets of citizens who hold full-time
jobs.
And the subject of safety cannot be discussed without mentioning
the continuing mass slaughter on the highways. While we are proud of
the continuing decline in the traffic fatality rate in California, no
one can take comfort from statistical charts that still spell tragedy and
heartbreak each year for thousands of our citizens.
-2-
Industrial Safety Cont rence
We are making progress in developing new ways to prevent this
violence on the highways. The introduction of seat belts, collapsible
steering wheels and increased passenger compartment padding have
contributed to this gain.
Automobile manufacturers, spurred by both government directives and
an increased public demand, are working to provide a wide variety of
safety features in the design and construction of vehicles.
This same safety factor is now an important part of highway design.
The Interstate System offers impressive proof that our high-speed
freeways can be made safer and carry a larger volume of traffic at the
same time. We are improving other roadways through the elimination of
obstacles along the right of way and by such innovations as the use of
breakaway sign posts.
All these mechanical and engineering devices are helping reduce the
traffic death toll in California. Still, we know that improving the
machine or highway can only do SO much to reduce accidents.
The driver represents the more difficult part of the equation.
Even in an age of automation, effective traffic safety regulations
require dealing with the driver's own careless or negligent attitudes.
We have given law enforcement important new legal tools to deal
with the drunk driver, because alcohol is responsible for more than 1/3
of all traffic fatalities.
We have doubled the number of officers in the Highway Patrol and
passed a pioneering law establishing presumptive limits for alcohol in
the blood of the driver. We have strengthened the officer's arrest
authority.
We already have new evidence that this coordinated approach is
working. Tentative 1970 figures from the California Highway Patrol
indicate that the state's death rate per hundred million vehicle miles
will decline from 4.6 to about 4.3, more than a full percentage point
below the national average.
Our freeways seem to be a favorite target for some bent on
criticizing without attention to all the facts. The truth is every
added mile of freeway saves lives. The fatality rate on the freeways
is less than half the rate on our conventional streets and highways.
I also want to briefly acquaint you with two major developments
involving occupational safety.
-3-
Industrial Safety Con ence
The new Federal Occupational and Safety Act of 1970 recognizes on
the national level that more must be done to prevent the massive losses
in manpower and money from the thousands of on-the-job injuries that
occur each year in the United States.
The new federal act puts the adoption and enforcement of occupation
safety and health regulations under the nation-wide control of the
Secretary of Labor. But the law provides that the Secretary of Labor
may approve equivalent state plans as a substitute and grant financial
support for up to 50 percent of the cost of such safety programs.
Frankly, one of the major reasons the federal government moved into
this field is because many states failed to provide modern industrial
accident prevention guidelines and the leadership necessary to maintain
a high-standard safety program.
We have no such problem in California. Our Department of Industria
Relations has long been recognized as a national leader in the field of
occupational safety.
And while it is too early to predict the exact effect the new
federal law will have on our program, I have designated the Department o:
Industrial Relations as the exclusive state agency to administer
California's occupational safety and health plan. In this, the
department will work with both its own Division of Industrial Safety and
the State Department of Public Health which has a related role.
This will provide a single agency through which to examine and
develop California's further participation in the federal act.
I believe the protection of our working men and women and the adopt:
and enforcement of necessary occupational safety standards can be done
best in California by our own experts in this field.
Since our own state regulations are superior to federal laws in
many other areas of public protection, I am confident that California's
plan will more than satisfy the federal standards. But it is important
that we receive your support.
The second major development is more in the nature of a preview
a little advance billing for the year-end report of the program to
reduce occupational injuries among our state employees.
-4-
Industrial Safety Conf *ence
We inaugurated this program a year ago to reduce the number of
disabling injuries to employees in state government. In 1969-the year
before we adopted this program-3,722 state employees suffered job-
related disability injuries and 22 died. The state lost 91,566 productive
work days, but this was only incidental to the physical and mental
anguish of our employees and their families---suffering that might have
been prevented in many cases.
The full results of our new program will be disclosed in a few
weeks. We did not achieve our first year objective of a 10 percent
reduction in accident rates, but we did reverse the upward trend in a
dramatic way. The statewide accident rate has been reduced from 18.0
disabling injuries per million employee hours of work in 1969 to 17.3
in 1970. The number of work days lost dropped 12,133 and most significant
there were 126 fewer disabling injuries, and nine fewer deaths in 1970.
Many of the accidents which cause so much suffering and financial
loss can be prevented. Death or injury is too great a price to pay
for carelessness. The people of California join me in wishing you
success in your crusade for safety. We are determined to achieve an
equal degree of success in our own safety programs in state government.
#####
(NOTE: Since Governor Reagan speaks from notes, there may be changes in,
or additions to, the above quotes. However, the governor will
stand by the above quotes.)
-5-
to
In
w
E/E
OFFICE OF THE GOVERA 1
RELEASE:
ON DELIVERY
Sacramento, California
Contact:
Paul Beck
445-4571
3-3-71
SPEECH BY GOVERNOR RONALD REAGAN
TOWN HALL, LOS ANGELES
March 3, 1971
Mr. Chairman, Members of Town Hall, Ladies and Gentlemen:
First let me thank you of Town Hall for your thoughtful and
timely invitation. I suspect that you were aware you were providing a
forum through which the people of California could be reached. In
doing so, you have been of great service because the people of California
are confronted by a most serious problem.
In the last few days, I have been asked a number of times if
the political honeymoon is over. I am not sure it ever started. On
the wedding night someone said something about stepping into the next
room to slip into something comfortable and they never came back.
On January 4, in my inaugural remarks I said that unless we
who had been elected to office were willing to completely reform our
programs of social welfare, we would have to ask you for a tax increase
this and every succeeding year as far as we could see into the future.
What we call California's welfare and health care system is
in reality nothing more than a state implementation of federal mandates
approaching $3½/2 billion in cost and leading us into sure bankruptcy
unless we have the courage to choose another course before it is too
late.
If misery loves company the theme music for the National
Governors Conference in Washington last week must have been "Hearts
and Flowers." Those states which have breezed along without having
to tap all the potential tax sources such as the sales or statewide
income tax are now adopting one or the other, or both. In an
unprecedented crisis Pennsylvania ran totally out of state funds four
days ago.
There was no partisanship at this conference nor in the
unanimous endorsement of federal revenue sharing. But the topic dominati
all others was welfare and how long government at any level could keep
pace with it's ever increasing cost. I might add there was great
interest in California because we were the only state readying a
concrete proposal for welfare reform. Surprising was the general
acceptance that added revenues were only temporary expedients and not
a permanent answer to the problem.
Town Hall Speech
Certainly this is true in California. The biggest of our
welfare programs, Aid to Dependent Children, increased its case load
39 percent last year and its cost 42 percent. Medi-Cal is increasing
more than twice as fast as our normal increase in revenues. One out
of nine Californians is drawing some form of welfare now and by the
end of the next fiscal year, if welfare goes on increasing at the
present rate, it will be one out of seven.
Even cutting back legitimate government services and postponino
important and needed projects, we face the fact that to continue the
present welfare and Medi-Cal programs without change will require
$220 million more than we have. To save the state $220 million in
welfare means reducing the total costs more than $600 million. We
cannot reduce our share without reducing costs at the county and the
federal level. Or put another way, if we have to ask the taxpayers
for an additional $220 million in state revenue, we force the counties
to raise property taxes another hundred million and add roughly $300
million to federal costs. And of course the same citizen pays it all--
county, state and federal. Right now, Californians are paying $32
billion in taxes of which more than $20 billion goes to Uncle Sam.
That is a tax burden that pro-rates out at $4,152 for every average
family of four in Califo rnia. A choice has to be made. Either we
tighten government's belt or we loosen your purse strings and extract
even more money than we are now taking. I am unalterably opposed to
that latter choice.
Last month I submitted to the legislature a budget which can
be balanced without increased taxes if we undertake a total reform of
welfare and Medi-Cal. About two hours ago a message outlining this
reform was delivered to both chambers of the legislature. I had
planned a more personalized delivery of this message but a funny thing
happened to me on the way upstairs.
Perhaps it is just as well, for the message is probably the
most comprehensive and detailed ever submitted by any governor of thi
state. It calls for a sweeping 70 point reform of the entire welfare
system. Legislation by the Senate and Assembly will be required in some
of the proposed changes. Others can be made administratively and we
will need the cooperation of the federal government to complete the
package. The Social Security Act says that states should be encouraged
to experiment with demonstration projects. On this basis, we are
waivers.
Town Hall Speech
If there were no fiscal crisis, we would still have to urge
welfare reform on the grounds of common sense. Present regulations
are so ambiguous that court decisions have added $441 million to the
cost of California welfare since 1967 and if we lose the cases still
pending, another $1.8 billion will be added. But an even more
compelling reason for reform is one of moral responsibility.
We had a task force of volunteer citizens and our own
appointees and staff working on this problem last summer. The counties
were doing the same and some of our reform proposals, incidentally,
reflect their findings.
Reform is needed not only because welfare is an administrative
disaster leading us to bankruptcy, but because it is a tragic failure
for those who are destitute and who have nowhere else to turn for the
most basic requirements of living. Let me emphasize this latter point
because any time changes are proposed in welfare there are those who
will raise a cry that we are lacking in compassion for the poor. The
very opposite is true. Welfare today is spread so thin it is incapable
of properly caring for the truly needy and destitute. It is spread
thin in attempting to provide for too many who are not needy but who
through loopholes are legally eligible to claim welfare benefits, and
too many who are receiving aid illegally because there is just no way
to prevent their cheating and because there is a gigantic extravagant
administrative overhead bound in endless miles of red tape and born
of overlapping and duplicating agencies.
I have heard the repeated statements that welfare fraud is
only one or two percent and not really an item of concern or even
something you can do much about. The truth is no one knows. No one
in the United States knows how many people are receiving welfare. We
all know how many checks are being mailed out but we have no way of
knowing how many individuals are getting several checks under different
names. We do not know because regulations keep us from checking on an
applicant's declaration we must accept his word as to his need.
-3-
Town Hall Speech
Recently in the San Francisco bay area, a group of citizens
set out to show how easy it is to get on welfare. Some of them managed
to get on as many as four times in one day in a single office. In
our neighbor state of Nevada, the governor (who described himself to me
as a liberal Democrat), ordered a house to house canvas of welfare
recipients. (They have a limited enough population to be able to do
this.) This actual head count revealed 22 percent of their welfare
recipients are receiving welfare dishonestly. Some time ago a welfare
conducted investigation in the District of Columbia turned up less
than two percent of fraud---a congressional investigation then found
it was 57 percent. Even so, I have to question whether fraud costs as
much as the legal kind of cheating we have created by our own well-
intentioned effort to provide work incentives. This idea (spawned in
Washington) has created a whole new class of affluent poor.
An answer was needed for the individual who sees no reason
to work if the dollars for working only replace the dollars he or she
can get from welfare. It was decided that a proper incentive would be
to supplement earnings by continuing to pay at least a part of the
welfare grant. By the time they had finished "thinking of everything
the intended incentive had become a windfall known in the welfare trade
as the 30 and a third formula. It goes to work when the recipient
gets a job. How much of the welfare grant he keeps is determined by
not counting $30 of his earnings as eligible income, nor do you count
one-third of the remainder, nor deduction for income tax, union dues,
or pension plan. Additional allowance is made for clothing, child care,
transportation (and this includes car payments) and finally $25
miscellaneous. There is virtually no ceiling on earnings above which
you become ineligible for welfare although we have found it usually
does not go much above $1,200 a month. At least one man in California,
however, managed to keep his welfare grant plus $16,800 a year in
salary. More typical is the case I described in the current issue
of "U. S. News and World Report". I gave an example of a California
recipient receiving a grant of $339 a month who took a job paying
$582 a month. The formula reduced the $582 to $42 countable income
and thus the $339 grant was only cut by $29. This individual now
has an income of $892 a month--a good portion of it tax free- and
is eligible for Medi-Cal and food stamps.
Town Hall Speech
Our task force surveyed those counties which together carry 40
percent of the welfare case load. We learned that working welfare
recipients have average earnings of $346 a month. Their grants in aid
not counting Medi-Cal (for which they remain eligible) averaged $186.
The grants for those with no outside earnings or income are only $21
more or $207 a month. Simple decency suggests reducing the supplemental
grant and increasing the $207 so as to provide a more decent living for
the totally destitute. Our reform proposes doing this. We will first
of all provide better for the truly needy. Admittedly our first
requirement in these stringent times must be balancing the budget but
even so we can also improve the lot of the poor and as we put our
financial house in order do so even more substantially.
Some will accuse me of citing horror stories which they claim are
only isolated cases. But they are wrong, Contra Costa County estimates
it has 2500 people fully employed and on welfare; 148 of them earn more
than $600 a month. Alameda County puts its figure at almost 4000 with
198 earning more than $600.
We can have realistic eligibility procedures to eliminate or at
least curtail fraud, a ceiling on earnings above which no welfare
payments will be made and a reduction in the grants to those who have
outside income. Able-bodied and employable recipients will be required
to work or take job training and we will go after those fathers who have
deserted their families, contributing nothing to their support. In
California they number 250,000. We intend to provide the counties with
the financial incentive to solve this problem. Properly pursued it could
be used to help the counties offset their welfare expenses.
Strengthening the role of the family is basic to our proposal. It
is called: "Meeting the Challenge: a responsible plan for welfare and
Medi-Cal reform." Obviously time will not permit the details of the 70
point proposal we have made, but let me summarize the more important
changes. First, we think the unemployables who are in fact pensioners,
the aged, the disabled and blind should be removed from the welfare
structure. The state will assume all administrative and grant payments
for these citizens numbering about 600,000. Their payments will be
automated similar to the method used in paying Social Security. There
is no need for a costly bureaucracy checking to see if the elderly are
continuing to get older. With the administrative savings we should
eventually be able to increase their pensions so as to give life a little
more dignity. pleasure and meaning.
5
Town Hall Speech
The state would be taking over about $92 million in present county
expenses but in another area "Aid to Families with Dependent Children'
the counties would assume an additional $84 million of cost. So the
net effect of these statistics is $8 million in savings to the counties
in 1971-72.
Let me say here and now to those who have charged we intend to
balance state. spending by dumping the load on the counties they are,
as usual, talking through their hats. One of the absolute musts in
this reform program is that there be no net cost shift to the counties.
As a matter of fact, let me repeat what I said earlier, if there is no
reform, county costs will go up $100 million. With reform this will,
of course, be eliminated. The $8 million projected savings next year
will grow in future years and could be as much as $47 million in savings
to the counties during 1972-73.
With the change of the elderly and disabled to a pension status,
welfare will then be dealing with the potentially employable. As of now
welfare is as I have described it "at sea without rudder or compass,"
Just putting ever increasing numbers of people on a dole and providing
food and shelter is not a worthwhile goal. These people are not a
faceless mass--they are individuals with individual and unique reasons
why many have been unable to get into the competitive labor market.
Finding and treating with that unique and personal reason will give
welfare a purpose and a goal. The goal must be to eliminate, if
possible, the need for itself. We must begin to measure our success by
how many people we have removed from the rolls each year, not how many
we have added. We intend to place the employable welfare recipient under
the jurisdiction of the Department of Human Resources Development. This
department's total effort is devoted to job hunting and job training.
Social workers assigned to this new jurisdiction will be judged not on
the basis of how many people they place on welfare, but how many they
place in jobs. This entire concept was born of recommendations made
the County Supervisors Association.
California has notbeen hesitant about job training programs, quite
the contrary. The only major government funded program now dealing with
welfare job training is "WIN"---the work incentive program. Almost a
third of all those who have obtained jobs through "WIN" in the entire
nation, have done so in California.
Town Hall Speech
(
Now we propose going further. The able-bodied employables will be
expected to work in a public work force if they are not engaged in a job
training program. They will receive the same benefits they are getting
now, but will in return work at public assistance jobs which will benefit
the community and the state. These will not be boondoggles or meaningles
tasks for some punitive reason of "work for the sake of working."
Every department of the state has been told to list those things it
would do if it had the manpower and the funds. In addition, local
government will be asked to provide work which can range from supervising
school playgrounds and helping in child care centers, to working in the
field of environment. Los Angeles County has already proposed using
recipients as school watchmen to prevent vandalism. The program will be
permanent but the individuals will be as temporary as we can make them.
Every effort will be made to move them from this public work force into
jobs in the private sector.
If an individual refuses to take a job when it is available,
participate in a job training program or in this interim public work
force, he or she will be denied further welfare assistance.
This, very much briefed down, is the direction our welfare reform
takes. There are, in addition, changes in eligibility standards,
elimination of unnecessary red tape and paperwork, increased auditing
of abuses, flat grant computations and prior month budgeting to determine
the size of welfare grants.
The goals are simple and straight forward: to increase our
assistance to the truly needy; to require those who are able to work to
seek work, train for a job or serve their community if asked as a
reasonable condition for receiving welfare; and to strengthen family
responsibility as the basic element in our society.
Then we propose to reform our health care program, known as Medi-Cal.
This program went into operation in the spring of 1966. By spring of
1967 it was in financial trouble and was bogged down administratively
with providers of service waiting six months or more for payment. Some
of the management snarls have been taken care of but not the problems
created by its unlimited benefits plus the case load explosion in welfare.
- 7 -
Town Hall Speech
The working men and women in California who pay for this program
are providing a level of health care for the others, that they can't
possibly afford for themselves. Most health care plans or industrial
and union programs offer no more than eight services with the individual
paying part of the cost for each of those. Medi-Cal offers 20 totally
free services with no restriction whatsoever on utilization.
In 1967 there were 97 claims of Medi-Cal for every one hundred
participants today there are 141 claims per 100 enrollees. The
per capita health care cost per year for the average citizen is $312.
The average cost per Medi-Cal recipient was $517 last year. We are
proposing legislation to bring Medi-Cal benefits in line with those
which the tax-paying citizens can afford.
Instead of a no-limit credit card Medi-Cal will provide a card good
for the same amount of health care services the average citizen uses
each year. Provision will, of course, be made for the cases of
catastrophic illness or accident or emergency. To control over-
utilization we propose a partial or token payment by every Medi-Cal
patient for the services he receives dollar for each visit to the
doctor or for each drug prescription, etc. The provider would collect
this and bill Medi-Cal for the balance.
In North Carolina a test was run on drug prescriptions alone and
utilization was reduced by 25 per cent. In England socialized medical
program token payment resulted in almost 10 percent reduction when
tried.
- 8 -
Town Hall Speech
I know that many will see our proposed welfare reform only as a
device to balance the budget and this will lead to charges that we
are placing dollars above human beings. To do so is at best the cheap-
est kind of demogogery and at worst selfish, irresponsible protection
of self interest.
Of course, we seek to balance the budget; the Constitution and
common sense require that we do SO. What is the alternative? An
increase in state taxes which must be accompanied by a corresponding
increase in county taxes and further deficit spending at the federal
level. And if all of that is done, it must be repeated again and
again until the very system collapses.
In the meantime, welfare goes on failing those who need it most,
destroying our most precious resource, our people. Finally faced with
economic crisis, we will find ourselves no longer able to help those
who turn to us because they have no other refuge. Our present fiscal
plight is not the reason for welfare reform; it is the excuse. It
prompts us to do at last that which has needed doing for a long, long
time.
Thirty-six years ago, in the dark days of the Depression, a
president of the United States who called on our people to be
compassionate warned us at the same time to temper compassion with
wisdom. Franklin D. Roosevelt said, "The lessons of history show
conclusively that continued dependence upon relief induces a spiritual
and moral disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national
fiber. To dole out relief is to administer a narcotic, a subtle
destroyer of the human spirit." Was he right? Is there a sickness
of spirit spreading over our land?
Last week in Washington, D.C., the "National Welfare Rights
Organization," ostensibly formed to protect the interests of the needy,
picketed the governor of Nevada for daring to expose those who
fraudulently posed as needy in order to rob their fellow citizens. In
one of our cities a man with no dependents and earning $800 a month
sued to prevent a county from making him contribute $20 a month to the
support of his aged mother. In St. Louis an industrial firm ran block~
buster ads in six papers offering the unskilled, jobs at $100 to $150
a week. One hundred forty-one applied, but most weren't seriously
Of the
looking for work or they didn't like the money. /thirty-eight who finall
went on the payroll, 27 didn't show up or if they did, quit in the
first two days. The company is still advertising.
-9-
Town Hall Speech
An unemployed young father in California, finally forced to accept
welfare, is urged by the social worker to free himself of debts by
declaring personal bankruptcy. His only assets, his household fur-
nishings, are taken to pay his creditors a few cents on the dollar.
But this, he is cheerfully told by the welfare worker, makes him
eligible for a house full of brand new furniture courtesy of the
taxpayers.
Perhaps you saw the Negro mother on the TV news telling of how
she was forced into welfare. She had never been on welfare before.
She worked from late afternoon until 11 or 12 at night to support her
children. Each evening she left the children at home in charge of the
oldest. She arrived home from work one night to find a social worker
waiting for her. She was told her children were to be taken from her
unless she stayed home to care for them. When she asked how she could
support them if she didn't go to work, she was told to quit work and
go on welfare. Wouldn't it make more sense to provide a baby sitter?
To those who say reform of welfare is impossible or unworkable, I
can only say, "not to Californians." Last week we talked to Secretary
Elliot Richardson of HEW and were assured of his very real interest al._
cooperation. We talked to the Finance Committee of the U.S. Senate
and obtained their enthusiastic pledge of support in our efforts to
make California welfare a pilot program.
They asked how many governors
would favor what we were trying to do. It was the last day of the
conference and we could only contact 27. Twenty-four of them, Democrats
and Republicans, signed a letter supporting our major proposals, three
took the letter to consult with their congressional delegations, all
of them asked for our detailed reform proposals. We are writing the
other 23 and have every reason to expect most or all will sign the
letter based on their views as expressed at the conference.
I asked for the opportunity to address the joint session of our
legislature precisely because of the news coverage that would follow.
It is absolutely imperative that the people of California understand
what we are trying to accomplish.
Right now the propaganda fires are being stoked by special interest
groups determined to resist and kill any effort to change welfare. In
the days ahead the legislative committee hearings will be the target
for demonstrations and pressure of every kind.
-10-
Town Hall Speech
(
We have had great cooperation from some in the social welfare
field who are true professionals and who want order brought out of the
present mess. But others, feeling their bureaucratic empires
threatened, will challenge every proposal and predict dire results if
any part of our plan is adopted. Others will urge total federal
takeover as the only solution. This would mean surrendering to those
who caused the problem in the first place, and few in federal govern-
ment want this.
Today we stand at a crossroad. We can continue to talk about
welfare, complain about it and watch it grow unchecked while we raise
taxes this year and every year thereafter to feed its cancerous
growth. or we can take the steps necessary to control it and reform
it so that it will at last have the proud purpose of maximizing human
dignity and salvaging the destitute.
This is not a jerrybuilt, hasty answer to a crisis. It is the
result of months of work and study. It is perhaps our last chance.
Neither Democratic or Republican, it is humanitarian and it is ready
to be tried.
I have addressed this message to the people of California because
we need you.
# # #
-11-
(NOTE: Since Governor Reagan speaks from notes, there may be additions
to, or changes in, the above text. However, the governor will
stand by the above quotes.)
11
11/8
the
the
OFFICE OF THE GOVERNO
RELEASE:
Im
liate
Sacramento, Californi
Contact:
Paul Beck
445-4571
3-11-71
To the Members of the Legislature of California:
SMOG
Cleaner air and water is a major priority of this administration.
Each year I have been governor, we have proposed and the legislature
has enacted comprehensive and increasingly effective programs to protect
California against various forms of environmental pollution.
We have the nation's strongest air and water quality control laws.
We have taken decisive steps to restore and reclaim many of those areas
of the environment despoiled or debauched by pollution. Last year, by
adopting the Clean Air Law of 1970, we took another major step toward
a coordinated statewide pollution control program to combat all types
of air pollution whether caused by vehicle emissions or by industrial
smog.
As a result of these efforts, California has become a model to the
federal government and for other states.
But much more needs to be done. The battle for clean air demands
an expanded effort if we are to achieve our goal of smog-free skies, and
fresh, clean air to breathe.
Therefore, I ask your support today for a 1971 legislative program
that will carry out our joint continuing commitment to strengthen
California's nationally acclaimed air pollution control efforts. This
program includes:
-Authority to require immediate installation of a device to control
nitrogen oxide discharges in 1966-70 model cars when it becomes available.
--Realistic emission standards and pollution control device
requirements for 1955-65 model used cars, the last major unregulated
source of vehicle air pollution.
--Authority to advance the dates for implementing statewide air
quality controls to fully implement California's program before the
deadlines established by the Federal Clean Air Act Amendments of 1970.
These steps are necessary to enable California to carry forward
effectively the fight against the two major causes of smog--the internal
combustion engine and industrial pollutants,
- 1 -
SMOG Message
Vehicle Emission Standards
California was the first state to take action to reduce automobile-
caused smog, the single greatest source of air pollution. Today, we
have the world's toughest motor vehicle emission standards and the Air
Resources Board is embarked on a program of progressively tougher
emission standards every year.
A measure of the tremendous progress we have made is the fact that
every 1971 model automobile in California emits 85 per cent less
hydrocarbons than vehicles used to discharge before our smog controls
went into effect. Every 1971 car rolling off the assembly line and onto
California's highways has the most sophisticated smog control systems
ever developed---including controls on crankcase vapors, evaporative
losses and exhaust emissions. This year, California put into effect
the first new car controls ever imposed anywhere on exhaust oxides
nitrogen, the brownish-orange colored element that makes smog a visibl
irritant.
Used Car Standards 1966-70
If we are determined to make more rapid visible progress toward
eliminating smog in California, we must take action to control and red
e
exhaust emissions of oxides of nitrogen and enact some measure of smog
control on pre-1965 model vehicles.
Current regulations require such controls for 1971 and future model
vehicles. About 50 percent of the automobiles now on the highways are
1966-70 models. Those model vehicles are equipped with systems that
reduce hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide emissions, but the steps taken
to control those two pollutants in 1966-70 model vehicles resulted in an
increased discharge of nitrogen oxides.
A device that could reduce these nitrogen oxide emissions by 25-30
per cent in 1966-70 model vehicles is available, although not yet
certified for use, at a cost of about $15 or less. But present law does
not require these devices on 1966-70 model vehicles. Therefore, I am
asking for legislation to require the nitrogen oxide controls on every
1966-70 model car upon change of registration, or after a year's
experience, at any earlier date specified by the Air Resources Board.
- 2 -
SMOG Message
Control Devices on 1955-65 Used Cars
About 46 percent of the automobiles on the highways today are
1955-65 models. Emissions from these vehicles, except for crank case
devices, are virtually uncontrolled.
It is a much more difficult and complex task to reduce the air
pollution caused by older model cars. Far more is required to bring the
emissions from these vehicles down to an acceptable level.
Currently, two methods to control emissions in 1955-65 model
automobiles are under consideration by the Air Resources Board. One is
to require installation of the nitrogen oxide control device only, a
step that could reduce by 25-30 percent emissions of the most visible
component of smog in Los Angeles and other large urban areas. Another
is to require a device that could control all three major pollutants
hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide and oxides of nitrogen. Work is now under
way on several of these devices, but none has been approved for marketing
by the Air Resources Board.
Under present law, the board is not empowered to certify a control
device that reduces only one of the three pollutants, To be approved,
a device must reduce two of the three. This has inhibited development of
control that could significantly reduce the smog problem, particularly
the visible irritants produced by nitrogen oxide emissions.
Therefore, I shall propose legislation to give the Air Resources
Board more freedom to decide if the benefits to be gained by one-
pollutant control device is sufficient to require installation on 1955-65
model vehicles. The proposal also will allow the board the discretionary
authority on how to make any approved device available to the public.
Emission Standards for 1955-65 Used Cars
As you know, it is not sufficient merely to require a smog control
device on 1955-65 model used cars when such devices become available at
a reasonable cost. Maximum benefits cannot be achieved unless the smog
control system and the engine are properly adjusted and maintained.
Therefore, we must take steps to guarantee that the device continues
to operate effectively throughout the life of the automobile. Studies by
the Air Resources Board and others have demonstrated that too many private
vehicles on the road today are improperly adjusted for maximum emission
control.
- 3 -
SMOG Message
The California State Automobile Association recently reported that
more than two-thirds of the cars it inspected had improper timing and
almost two-thirds had improper idling adjustments. The organization
estimated that inexpensive periodic tune-ups could decrease considerably
the amount of pollution caused by older model vehicles.
The Air Resources Board and the California Highway Patrol current
are considering vehicleemission standards which can be utilized by the
CHP in a random inspection program. The goal would be to identify cars
with excessive emissions.
Last year, I signed into law a bill calling for a study to determine
the feasibility, benefit and cost of requiring periodic inspection of
emissions for all vehicles. This $400,000 study is now being completed
for the Air Resources Board and a report of the findings is expected in
June. This will provide guidelines for developing methods to assure
that smog control devices remain effective in all cars operating on
California's highways.
Warranty and Fuel Composition
Federal law requires manufacturers to issue a warranty for five
years or 50,000 miles on emissions control systems. But the warranty
covers only federal standards. Since California has a waiver for its
more rigid requirements, legislation is necessary to require
manufacturers of new vehicles to guarantee that pollution control
systems meet California standards. These systems must have a warranty
assuring a minimum useful life of 50,000 miles.
As you recall, last year I urged legislative support for bills that
would take the lead out of gasoline as a means of reducing the pollutants
in the fuel burned by the internal combustion engine. Accordingly, I
will again support legislation to regulate the lead content of gasoline.
We also plan to continue to explore other changes in fuel
composition that hold promise for further reductions in the smog level
produced by motor vehicles.
Statewide Air Pollution Control Enforcement
Last year, the legislature passed and I signed into law several
important programs aimed at assisting and coordinating the attack on all
sources of air pollution in California including:
--A bill by Assemblyman Peter Schabarum establishing a procedure for
basinwide (or district) air pollution control plans.
- 4 -
SMOG Message
--The personalized license plate program which enables our citizens
to help protect the environment by buying and displaying their own
personalized automobile license plates. This program has raised more
than half a million dollars for environmental purposes so far.
--Legislation assigning responsibilities to the Air Resources Board
to conduct $9 million research program, to develop a more comprehensive
air monitoring network and to adopt guidelines for control of agricultural
burning.
Pollution control districts in California's most populated areas
already are working to meet the standards set by the State Air Resources
Board. The air basin approach is a key element in developing an
effective way to monitor and control industrial and other stationary
sources of pollution on a basinwide scale.
Under this program, each county is required to be in an air
pollution control district. To assure control of the program at the
level of government closest to the people, each district is required to
have a coordinating council of elected local officials to prepare a
basinwide plan.
Federal Clean Air Act Amendments
The Federal Clean Air Act Amendments of 1970, signed by President
Nixon in December, went into effect several months after California
established its own statewide air pollution control plan. These
amendments require California to submit a statewide plan to meet federal
standards by January 25, 1972.
Because the statewide plan must be based on programs developed in
each air basin and approved by the Air Resources Board, it will be
necessary to adjust the timetables by which the basinwide coordinating
councils complete their pollution control plans.
To speed the enactment of these plans, the legislation containing
these adjusted deadlines will contain an emergency clause.
We also must speed up the process by which the Air Resources Board
reviews and oversees the work being done by the district coordinating
councils and the county and regional districts.
Finally, we must require each air pollution control district to:
(1) determine what pollutants are being emitted in its area of
jurisdiction, from what sources, and if the emissions are excessive, to
take steps to regulate them;
(2) devise plans to regulate construction of all potential sources
of air pollution and to prohibit such construction unless the project
meets existing emission standards.
SMOG Message
Air Pollution Emergencies and Prevention
Severe air pollution has become a major potential hazard of modern
life. In addition to empowering the governor and local agencies to
declare a state of emergency because of severe air pollution, we must
assign to the Office of Emergency Services the responsibility for
developing plans to prevent severe air pollution that could become
dangerous to human health if left unchecked. This program will conform
to the requirements of the Federal Clean Air Act.
Air Resources Board
The Air Resources Board is the state agency charged with the
responsibility for conducting air pollution control activities in
California. It was established in 1967 by the Mulford-Carrell Act and
includes 14 distinguished members who donate their time to supervise
the state's battle against smog and air pollution.
The people of California owe a debt of gratitude to the present
able chairman, Dr. A. J. Haagen-Smit and to the other members of the
board. They have done an admirable job in many difficult areas.
With the expanding programs and changing emphasis of the board's
responsibilities, however, it now is appropriate to review the boar.
operations to see what steps should be taken to strengthen California's
ability to meet the demands being made on our air pollution enforcement
machinery.
My administration currently is exploring various reorganization
proposals and when these studies are completed, I shall submit a
detailed message outlining recommendations for the future management of
California's environmental protection program.
Because we must plan for the next decade while struggling to meet
today's air pollution problems, I urge the legislature to support
these new efforts to keep California foremost in the battle against
smog.
Air pollution controls must become an accepted past of modern
life if we are to assure clean air and clear skies in California. By
working together, I am confident we will achieve that goal.
#####
- 6 -
/24
3/24
3/
3
OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR
RELEASE: WEDNESDAY P.Ms.
Sacramento, California
MARCH 24, 1971
Contact:
Paul Beck
445-4571
3-24-71
EXCERPTS OF REMARKS BY GOVERNOR RONALD REAGAN
Los Angeles Trade-Technical College Breakfast
Los Angeles, California
March 24, 1971
I would like to point out some basic observations that are being
made more and more about America's educational priorities and the
rapidly changing employment market of our economy.
First: while our system of higher education is properly designed
to allow the individual to expand his academic horizons to the maximum
of his interest and ability, we must never forget that the primary goal
for many students is a job they want to equip themselves through
advanced education for an immediate productive place in society.
Second: there is a growing national concern that during the years
when our system of higher education grew so fast, a gross imbalance
developed in our educational priorities.
Perhaps the nation placed too great a stress on the academic
disciplines and paid too little attention to providing the technical
raining so many young people need to compete in the employment market
today and in the decades ahead.
During a recent meeting of the Educational Commission of the States,
one governor (Delaware's Russell W. Peterson) said the nation should be
educating more technicians who are needed instead of turning out an
oversupply of Ph.Ds. who can't find a job in overcrowded academic fields.
Another educator at the same meeting warned that America has been pushing
its youth toward desk jobs that may not exist when they graduate.
These observations were not intended as a criticism of America's
efforts to offer higher education to all. There is no conflict between
the traditional academic disciplines offered in our colleges and
universities and technical instruction that leads directly to a job.
Both are important. And both are necessary if we are to provide
our young people with the knowledge and skills they will need.
But there is a concern among educators, public officials and among
the students themselves that our priorities are out of balance. In
planning our educational expenditures and programs, we must strike a
more equitable balance between meeting the educational needs of the 20
percent of students who start and finish 4-year college programs and
providing occupational training for the 80 percent of our young people
who will enter the job market without a 4-year degree.
Trade-Technical College Breakfast
Finding the prop : balance between the fina) ial demands of
competing but essential public services is the most difficult and
important task of any state administration.
We are trying to do just that in California. Almost 85 percent of
our tax dollars are devoted to a direct investment in people in
education, welfare and health programs. Nearly half the General Fund
budget goes to education.
Since a certain amount of confusion exists about budgets and
education, particularly higher education, our state budget this year
includes more than $576 million for higher education. That is the
largest appropriation for higher education in the state's fiscal history.
Between 1967 and 1971, state support for the University of California
increased from $240 million to $337 million. That is more than 40
percent increase. Enrollment went up 26 percent. During the same
period, enrollment in the state colleges went up 46 percent but spending
rose 75 percent.
The newest and fastest growing segment of higher education is
California's network of community colleges, a nationally-acclaimed
system of which Los Angeles Technical College is an outstanding example.
This year's state budget provides $180 million for state support for
community colleges. That is a 140 percent increase over the $75 million
the state was providing when we first arrived in Sacramento.
And our budget for student scholarships and loans is now up to
$20 million a year, a 4-year increase of 270 percent.
I know quite well that there are those who say this is not enough.
Parkinson's Law (the one about expenditures rising to meet income) works
with a different twist on the campus. In higher education, requests for
expenditures seem to rise twice as fast as income could ever increase.
But we are putting a heavy emphasis on education because we have a
basic belief that education is the wisest investment we can make. It
offers the key to solving society's other great contemporary dilemma--
the problem of an unacceptably high percentage of our population on the
welfare rolls.
I believe the citizens of California approve placing this high
priority on education but we must not expect the taxpayers of this state
to meet a constantly increasing demand for public funds without critical
review. We have been attempting to make that kind of review.
Inefficiency and poor management of available resources is as
unacceptable in higher education and the public schools as it is in
any other publicly-funded service.
- 2 -
Trade-Technical College Breakfast
Nor can we permit education to measure its progress solely by the
amount of public funds invested in it.
We must, instead, begin measuring public education by new yardsticks,
including the practical test of how well our educational system succeeds
in providing the skills necessary for the individual to find and keep a
job in the 1970s.
This offers a challenge not only to education, but to the private
sector and to every segment of our society.
Educators who promote only academic programs for the college-bound
youngster must give greater consideration to the educational goals of
all our school population. There must be a closer coordination between
our educational institutions and the businesses and industries which
employ the graduates of those institutions. We must do more to assure
that the skills that are learned in our schools can be effectively
translated into productive employment.
It is in this vital area that California's business and industry
can and must begin taking a far more active interest. Many companies
already have recognized this obligation and are doing something about
it
not only in keeping contact with technical institutions such as
Los Angeles Trade Tech, but also with our high schools the last level
of formal learning for a sizeable percentage of our young people.
The private sector must do far more to promote a partnership between
public education and private enterprise. We especially need more
progress in developing sophisticated levels of technical training of
the type offered at Los Angeles Tech.
The U.S. Office of Education estimates that half the jobs opening
up in this decade will require technical training beyond high school,
but less than a 4-year degree.
That is why your contribution is so important. Technical training
fills a realistic demand in today's job market. Trained hands and minds
are never idle for long.
There is another reason for greater private sector participation
in this type of program. I mentioned it earlier the problem of welfare
in California and the rest of the nation.
Because it has such a direct connection with education for jobs,
I would like to just briefly mention one of the goals of the welfare
reform program WE have introduced in the state legislature.
- 3 -
California has lost 2.4 million people receiving some sort of
welfare assistance almost one out of every nine citizens. A majority
of this number more than 1.6 million persons are in the Aid to
Families with Dependent Children category. Unless the upward growth
of welfare is checked, California's welfare rolls will swell by another
600,000 persons in the next 18 months to a total of three million
people by mid-1972. That is almost one out of every seven citizens.
That also is a figure that is totally unacceptable. I realize that
many people have their own ideas of welfare reform. Quite frankly, I
do not think any program that does not stress work will ever make any
realistic reduction in the welfare rolls.
That is why we are stressing work in our welfare reform plan. We
are seeking to break the welfare cycle by changing the basic approach.
It is now simply a financial dole on which some families have beer
dependent for several generations. We propose to break this cycle
a variety of steps.
First, we propose to separate the elderly, the blind and disabled
from our present welfare structure. Instead of a welfare check, these
groups would be regarded as pensioners and their monthly checks would be
distributed to them on an automated basis similar to the way Social
Security works.
Every other adult still left on the welfare rolls would then be
regarded as "temporarily unemployed" rather than as a permanent welfare
dependent. They would be transferred out of the jurisdiction of the
social welfare bureaucracy and into the state agency which handles
employment services and job training.
The first priority would be to place able-bodied recipients into
existing private or public sector jobs. If no job could be found, the
recipient would be directed into the Work Incentive Program or other
existing job training projects. If immediate employment or placement
in a work training project is not possible, the able-bodied recipients
will be expected to participate in what we call a Public Assistance
Work Force.
This would not be a boondoggle. Instead, these able-bodied welfare
recipients will be taking part in projects to improve their communities
or the state projects that otherwise might never be accomplished
because of a lack of manpower or funds.
- 4 -
Trade-Technical Colleye Breakfast
We have asked the various departments of state government to
catalog all those things they would do if they had the money and manpower.
A similar request has been sent to every local government in the state.
Some have suggested using the Public Work Force to provide school
ground monitors to prevent violence or vandalism. They could also help
in such things as earthquake, flood, forest fire or oil spill clean-up
activities. They could help provide child care for the children of
other recipients who are working or engaged in job training. Bill Mott,
our director of Parks and Recreation, said he could use 3000 right now
in our state parks.
The program itself would be permanent, but the individual's part
in the Public Work Force would be as temporary as we could make it. It
would only be a way station en route to a permanent job.
But it would shift the entire emphasis of today's welfare program
away from permanent dependency and toward the dignity and the discipline
of work and a permanent job.
We realize that it will take a massive effort to implement this
kind of program in California. The same kind of determination must be
exhibited in broadening the areas of technical training available to our
young people.
There is a close connection between the need for welfare and the
lack of adequate occupational training in our schools in the past.
Almost 30 percent of the welfare mothers on AFDC and more than 20 percent
of the unemployed fathers in the program have completed high school
the generally accepted minimal educational requirement for many
nonprofessional jobs.
They should be prime candidates for further training to qualify
them for permanent employment.
The fact that government at all levels now must spend so much money
and effort on remedial welfare and training is a tragic reminder of the
inadequate attention the educational system has given to occupational
training in the past.
Both government and the private sector must re-examine some of the
unrealistic educational requirements that have arbitrarily limited job
opportunities for otherwise qualified people.
A few years ago, a Bay Area newspaper surveyed the educational
requirements of various civil service jobs in local governments. One
county required custodians to be high school graduates.
- 5
Trade-Technical College Breakfast
The duties of
a
.stodian included
among
her
things
changing
light bulbs. That arbitrary requirement for a high school diploma
meant that Thomas A. Edison could not have qualified for a job changing
light bulbs. He only had a few months of formal schooling.
Neither could Henry Ford. America's greatest industrial genius
became a machinist's apprentice at the age of 16,
These examples are not cited to suggest that higher education is
not important. Of course it is important, so is encouraging all our
youngsters to develop their skills to a maximum.
We must reawaken in America a respect for work work of all kinds.
In the home, in our schools, in our churches and particularly in our
institutionsof higher learning, we must encourage respect for the dignity
of work at any level. We must frankly concede something that is obvious
to many of our young people: individual success and productive
employment in the American economy is a prize available to all. It is
not limited to an academic elite.
Many of our young people on and off campus are forcing a critical
examination of obsolete social values based on the false premise that
the only good education is one capped by four years of college.
They are challenging and rejecting as unrealistic and snobbish t
social pressures which imply that the highly skilled electronics
technician or mechanic is somehow less important or less of a valued
member of society than the accountant or junior executive.
There is living proof that there is always room at the top for the
talented
and
the
productive
for those willing to work. And it doesn't
matter whether you start your journey in an apprentice program or on a
college campus. According to a national survey, about 43 percent of
America's top business leaders today achieved their positions without
a college degree.
There is no generation gap in this renewed respect for the dignity
of labor. The older generation grew up with work and sweat and toil and
they honor all who have achieved craftsmanship in any endeavor.
Students today are demanding more of what they call "relevant
education.' By that some of them mean schools that are in reality more
pleasant babysitting facilities. But a great many of them mean courses
of study which lead directly to a job---in skilled fields that interest
them and which are so necessary to our modern economy.
- 6 -
Trade-Technical Colle - Breakfast
We must do more to assure that this opportunity for technical
training is available to all who seek it. By doing so, we will be
demonstrating our society's respect for all types of education.
Man's entire store of knowledge is found in books that could not
have transmitted wisdom from one generation to another without the
skills of the printer and the master bookbinder. Without these
craftsmen, our most famous philosophers and writers would have remained
mere story-tellers.
The combination of the philosopher and the craftsman created our
civilization. To maintain that civilization, we need the skills of both.
####
(NOTE: Cince Governor Reagan speaks from notes, there may be additions
to, or changes in, the above text. However, the governor will
stand by the above quotes.)
- 7 -
56/8
3
ST,
Sacramento, California
MAR 26, 1971
Contact:
Paul Beck
445-4571
3-25-71
EXCERPTS OF REMARKS BY GOVERNOR RONALD REAGAN
WISCONSIN REPUBLICAN DINNER
March 25, 1971
It is a pleasure to be with you here this evening to bring you
greetings from California. Our two states have many things in common.
The people of Wisconsin and California share the same basic
commitment to a free society that provides a maximum opportunity for all
with a minimum of governmental interference.
Trying to decide on a topic for this prestigious audience was a
difficult task. Which of the many problems confronting our country would
be most appropriate to discuss?
What single concern do you have in Milwaukee that poses an equal
worry for the people of Los Angeles?
Is it welfare? Unemployment? The war in Southeast Asia? All of
those things are important and deserving of our attention. But I would
like to speak with you this evening on a theme that is part and parcel
of all the dialogue today on all those issues.
It is part of the debate on welfare, the economy and war and peace.
And it is the single most distressing element in the running war of words
about whether today's young people constitute a lost generation
a
generation lost because of a communications gap with their elders over
what America is and what it is not.
Is America a sick society? Is private enterprise engaged in some
sort of mass consortium with government to perpetuate war, poverty,
injustice and prejudice?
Is everyone over 30 a materialistic tool of the establishment
...
greedily consuming the shiny products of a society that has no regard for
the human values involved in such issues as war and peace, racism and
tolerance poverty and prosperity?
That is what the street-corner militants say. That is what some
muddle-headed doom-criers on the political scene are saying.
But that is not what our people are saying because they know that
the people who shout loudest to tell it like it is have been telling it
like it isn't.
- 1 -
Wisconsin Republican
Lnner
The greatest tribute one can make to the American political system
is that it places so much trust and faith in the common sense of the
people. And people with common sense recognize the revolutionary
rhetoric of the doomsday people as just so much bunk. They are getting
tired of listening to the radicals who find everything wrong about America
The people are starting to remind the fault-finders what is right about
America.
Now, it is true we have not completely eliminated war or the threat
of war. But the older generation need make no apology to anyone for the
depth of its devotion to the cause of freedom or peace. No one ever
fought harder or paid a higher price to preserve not only their own
freedom, but the freedom of oppressed people all over the world.
The leaders of today's so-called establishment did not have to
listen to a classroom lecture or make a field trip to the ghetto to learn
about poverty. We lived it in the depths of a great depression.
The horrors of war are not just a subject for a term paper to a
generation that sent its finest young men to fight at Omaha Beach, across
the bloody battlefields of Europe and on a hundred coral atolls in the
vast Pacific.
What would the world be like today if Americans had not been willing
to fight and die for the freedom of people who lived in places whose
names they could not pronounce?
No society ever worked harder to eliminate the blight of racial
prejudice or taxed itself more to give the disadvantaged and the poor a
second chance in life.
No, we have not wiped out the threat of war, eliminated poverty or
erased prejudice completely from the hearts of men. But this generation
of free men did more than any other in history to make this a better
world.
The fantastic scientific advances and material blessings that America
enjoys today is called materialism. We are told that it would be far
better to live in a worker's paradise where dissent is rewarded by a
trip to Siberia.
What would that mean to America? If we were to adopt this other
life-style, we would have to tear down 60 percent of the homes in
America we would have to get rid of 90 percent of our telephones
scrap 65 percent of our railroads. Our working men and women would have
to work six times as long as they do now to put meat on the table, and
15 times as long to buy a dress or a new suit.
Despite these undeniable accomplishments, the men and women who II
up today's establishment are the first to concede that the job is not
complete. And they are ready to listen to the idealistic yearnings of
majority of our young people who long for the chance to help to finish
the task.
Those who try to peddle some form of Marxist Utopia in America do
not have the answer. Even among ourselves, we have different ideas of
how best to solve the problem of poverty in the middle of plenty.
But the problem of welfare in America today is not the same that t
nation faced in the 1930s
when skilled men and women were out of work
and there were no jobs.
The most persistent unemployment today is that partly caused by the
senators and congressmen who vote time after time to downgrade America's
aerospace and defense industry and then shed pious tears of concern abou
the unemployment this creates.
But if common sense wins, this will be only a temporary thing.
Welfare is another story. We now have third and fourth generations
of
families
on welfare people who know no other way of life. And the
complex system of public assistance that has evolved over the past 30
years is a costly and tragic failure. It has become hopelessly bogged
down in bureaucracy, bound by unrealistic and unnecessary red tape and
corrupted by legal loopholes that not only allow, but even invite,
abuses which erode public confidence.
I am sure you have read about the welfare family housed in New York'
Waldorf-Astoria. Nevada's governor was picketed by the National Welfare
Rights organization after he dropped 3,000 people from the welfare rolls.
He ordered this step after a house-to-house canvass discovered that about
20 percent of his state's welfare recipients were drawing benefits
illegally.
Other states find themselves forced by court order to finance welfar
benefits for illegal aliens.
The question is not should welfare be reformed? The only question i
ow? We think we have the answer for our state and we think it could
work in other states, too.
And I know we must be on the right track because we have been
denounced as heartless penny-pinchers by most of those who look upon bein
poor and on welfare as an acceptable lifelong career in America.
Time prevents a lengthy description, but I would like to mention
some highlights of our proposal.
- 3 -
Wisconsin Republican Linner
First, we want to remove from the welfare structure the elderly,
the blind and the permanently disabled. There are about 600,000 persons
in this category in California. We hope to turn their monthly checks
into pensions, and distribute these through an automated system similar
to social security. There is no reason for a social worker dropping by
to see if a senior citizen is still getting older. With the savings
administrative costs, we could provide an even higher monthly pension
for our truly needy elderly and disabled.
After this is done, we would then completely restructure the
remaining welfare system. Every adult recipient still on the rolls would
cease being regarded as a welfare "case" to be periodically diagnosed
and reported in a social worker's casebook.
Instead, all able-bodied recipients will be regarded as tempor
unemployed. Instead of being shifted from social worker to social
worker, the adult recipient would be assigned to California's state
agency for employment services and job training programs.
If the employable recipient has a marketable job skill, he will be
assisted in his search for employment. And he will be expected to meet
strong self-help job-seeking requirements.
If no private or regular public sector job is available, the next
step will be to direct the welfare recipient into an appropriate
training program. If immediate job placement or a training program is
not possible, the able-bodied welfare recipient will be expected to
participate in what we call a Public Assistance Work Force.
In this program the welfare recipient would be expected to work to
help improve the society which supports him. Now I know some regard the
idea of work for welfare assistance as a radical suggestion.
That illustrates how far off the track we have gone in public
assistance, especially in the Aid to Families with Children category
the largest segment of the welfare system.
This program now is simply a financial dole on which some families
have been dependent for several generations. In California, we have
1.6 million people on AFDC. The program we propose would shift the
emphasis away from welfare and toward employment. We want to turn AFDC
aid into a temporary way-station instead of a permanent and demeaning
way of life.
- 4 -
Wisconsin Republican Dinner
The jobs we propose in the public assistance work force would not
be boondoggles, No one regards it as demeaning for college students to
volunteer to pick up litter or engage in other projects to improve the
environment. Why should it be demeaning for a welfare recipient to do
something constructive for the society which supports him?
We have asked our state agencies to list all those things they would
do if they had more manpower and funds. And we have asked local
governments to do the same.
We could have used some of the Public Assistance Work Force in
cleaning up after our recent Southern California earthquake. Crews of
welfare recipients could be put to productive work cleaning up after
floods, forest fires they could maintain park and recreational
facilities that now go unattended take part in recycling waste products.
Women recipients could provide child care for others on welfare so
that they might then work and train for a job that would end the family's
dependence on the welfare system.
Los Angeles has suggested using such a welfare work force to provide
school monitors to guard against violence or vandalism. Every urban
school district in America could benefit from this kind of a constructive
contribution.
These would not be full-time or permanent jobs. But the public
assistance work force would be a way of introducing the discipline and
dignity of work into a welfare system that now guarantees demeaning
dependency.
Those who refuse to work, to train for eventual employment or take
part in community work projects will be denied further assistance.
Our welfare reform includes more than 70 specific points we want
to develop more effective ways of tracing the quarter-million fathers in
California who have abandoned their families to welfare. If we could
collect $75 per month from only 50 percent of the absent AFDC parents in
California, we could reduce welfare costs by $100 million.
We want to close the legal loopholes that allow high-income
ecipients to remain eligible for welfare or medical assistance and we
want to make our state's Medicaid program fairer to the person who
really needs help and to the taxpayer who now pays for benefits that
exceed what he can afford for himself and his own family.
We have no illusions that enacting this kind of welfare reform will
be easy.
- 5 -
Wisconsin Republican Dinner
But we are going to try because to do otherwise would be to
compound the failures of the present welfare system. We must begin
measuring the success of welfare not by how many people are added each
year, but by how many we remove from the rolls.
Unless we succeed with welfare reform, the whole system is doomed
to ultimate collapse because of the financial burden it places on the
taxpayer and every level of government.
We think welfare can be reformed. We know it must be reformed.
#####
(NOTE: Since Governor Reagan speaks from notes, there may be additions
to, or changes in, the above text. However, the governor will
stand by the above quotes.)
-6-
will
3/
3
126
9
OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR
RELEASE: Saturday A.M.s
Sacramento, California
Contact: Paul Beck
445-4571
3-26-71
EXCERPTS OF REMARKS BY GOVERNOR RONALD REAGAN
Minnesota State Central Committee Fundraising Dinner
St. Paul, Minnesota, March 26, 1971
Back in 1962, the last time I visited here, I discussed freedom
and the slow erosion of individual rights that always occurs in a
society that permits centralized government to grab more and more
control.
In those days, the advocates of bigger and bigger government were
back in control after eight years of enlightened leadership under
President Eisenhower. They went back to Washington to "get the
country moving again." "
Well, they certainly did that. They moved the country into a war
and the worst inflation in more than one hundred years.
Some of today's college students are too young to remember the
Eisenhower era. And many of them have been given a distorted view by
professors who preach peace and yet sneer at the administration of the
President who did more to secure the peace than any other American
statesman in this century.
Perhaps it would be in order to recall those years briefly.
During those eight years, America ended an unpopular stalemated war
with honor. And we kept the peace. America started the Atoms-for-Peace
program, the people-to-people program and we passed the first civil
rights legislation in 82 years.
But possibly an even greater achievement of the Eisenhower-Nixon
years is only now being recognized. In those years, America turned
away from the iron grip of bureaucratic control. Because he knew so
well the dangers of centralized government, President Eisenhower worked
for eight years to strengthen states and local government.
And even though Hubert's back in Washington again, things are
different than in 1962. This time we have a national administration
that also is interested in reversing the flow of power and dollars to
shington.
Your own Governor LeVander has been a major leader in this effort
to strengthen state and local governments. He has been in the forefront
of the effort to develop the concept of federal revenue sharing.
While we may have some differences over the formulas and details,
I can assure you of one thing: the proposal to let the states have some
of their own tax money back to solve some of their own problems is an
idea endorsed by virtually every governor.
-1-
Minnesota Fundraiser
Actually, it isn't a new idea. States have been doing the same
thing for years sharing tax revenue with local governments to finance
the services that our people need.
Minnesota shares more than 50 percent of its revenue with local
government by returning part of your state income tax and sales tax
revenues to local governments. We have been doing the same thing in
California for many years.
This year, our state budget includes $665 million in revenue
collected by the state and returned to finance local governments. We
return about half our state gasoline tax to local government and three
cents of the state tax on cigarettes.
We also have an ongoing program of direct tax relief for
homeowners
to relieve the property taxpayer of some of his burden.
This year, about $344 million is earmarked for this kind of tax rel
in our state.
In this respect, Minnesota and California are very much alike. Our
states have been doing their best to keep up with the staggering increases
in government costs during the past decade
but we have just about
reached the limit of our available tax sources.
California sends more than $20 billion to Washington every year.
We are one of those states which gets back less than we send.
About 65 percent of all our tax dollars go to Washington. The
other 35 percent is divided about half and half between the state and
local governments. But we at the state level share far more of our
revenues with local governments than the federal government shares with
the states.
That is why the concept of federal revenue sharing has won almost
unanimous backing from the nation's governors.
The idea that states and local governments can solve local problems
more effectively has grown in popularity since President Eisenhower
proposed it back in the 1950s. Even our opponents have hopped on the
bandwagon. They now concede that the answer to every problem is not
necessarily found along the banks of the Potomac River.
Yet there still are those who refuse to surrender any of the power
or control they would lose by giving the people back some of their own
money.
-2-
Minnesota Fundraiser
They have no faith in the peoples' capacity to govern themselves.
Instead, the planners and the programmers would continue to centralize,
computerize and organize us into a nation of sheep and shepherds
with
the shepherds based in Washington.
This idea of a master plan of government run by bureaucratic remote
control poses the single greatest threat to our freedom. And that is
what disturbs us most because freedom, once lost, is seldom if ever
regained.
In our lifetime, we have heard the cries of those who have lost
their freedom. Invariably, they ask: "How did this happen. On what
day was freedom lost."
There was no certain day for many. For every time freedom has
fallen to the sword of the conqueror, it has been lost 100 times
slowly, silently by erosion
when people stood by and permitted cen-
tralized government to seize more and more control over their lives
and fortunes.
This kind of erosion happens every time a higher level of govern-
ment dictates a solution to a local or state problem and sends the bill
to us.
Emergency federal solutions tend to become permanent problems on
a wider scale. Temporary controls turn into lasting shackles.
And nothing in our changing era is so permanent as a temporary
tax. In 1917, the automobile excise tax went on the books as a
temporary war-time revenue measure. Now it is older than most Americans.
The excise tax on telephone service--another temporary levy--has
become part of the establishment. It is just over 30 years old.
Nine years ago on my last visit, many of you were shocked that
inflation had whittled the purchasing power of the dollar down to 50
cents. That half dollar now looks pretty good from this distance.
The Great Society's inflationary policies have eroded the value of a
prewar dollar down to 36 cents today. More government in Washington
means less dollars to solve local problems in St. Paul.
An English humorist wasn't really joking when he surveyed modern
bureaucracy and warned that expansion means complexity and complexity
means decay.
-3-
Parkinson's second law (the one about expense rising to meet
income) had a different twist to the Great Society. Their idea of
government was to finance a new program first and find the problem
later.
Well, there is no shortage of problems. But we won't solve the
plight of the states or the cities in 1971 by applying the solutions
of the 1930s.
That is what the battle for revenue sharing is all about. That is
why the President and Ted Agnew have been working to curb inflation
and wind down the war in Vietnam so that we can get on with the task
of building a peaceful and more prosperous America.
The much-maligned silent majority is beginning to speak out in
favor of this positive approach to government.
They know that it takes only revolutionary rhetoric to tear down.
But it takes work to build a nation or a political philosophy.
We have got our own Parkinson's Law in California. I am sure
you've heard of it. This 11th Commandmant to "speak no ill of a fellow
Republican" has served us well.
It started us working together again to build our state and our
party. It can work in any state.
There is still a place for common courtesy in America even in
politics. After all, the things that unite us are far more numerous
than the things that divide us. We all seek the same goals. We can
reach those goals if we work together to build a positive program for
our states and our country.
# # #
(NOTE: Since Governor Reagan speaks from notes there may be changes
in, or additions to, the above text. However, the governor
will stand by the above quotes.)
-4-
4/14
4
OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR
RELEASE: "EDNESDAY P.Ms.
Sacramento, Californ
ril 14, 1971
Contact:
Paul Beck
445-4571
4-14-71
EXCERPTS OF REMARKS BY GOVERNOR RONALD REAGAN
CSEA Institute on Government, Sacramento
April 14, 1971
Just as there should be no secrets between friends, there should be
no sensitive issues between those of us who try to work harmoniously
together to make state government work. That is why I would like to
begin my visit with you today by discussing a subject I know is on your
minds. It is certainly on my mind as I look out at this audience of
career state employees.
Although we have provided general and special pay adjustments
averaging more than 5 percent for four consecutive years more than 21
percent in all---we were not able to include a general cost-of-living
salary increase in the 1971-72 budget.
This is the first time in my administration and the first time since
the previous administration skipped a year in 1963 that the state
government has been forced to ask its employees to forego a general
salary increase.
You are as familiar as I am with the national economic slump, the
ever-rising welfare load and the subsequent unemployment that began
affecting our revenues and costs last year. This economic downturn has
had a severe impact on anticipated state revenues, not only in California
but across the nation. At the same time, costs for welfare and other
state services have gone up due to inflation.
The combined financial squeeze forced us to impose the utmost
budgetary restraints this year.
No one realizes more than I do that this works a hardship on career
state employees. And certainly my request does not mean that I think our
hard-working civil servants are undeserving of a raise. The fact that
the average general salary increase in these past four years was higher
than the amount granted during the previous four-year period I think
indicates that what I have proposed for the next year's budget is
something of an amergency action.
Many of our fellow citizens are undergoing the tragic experience of
unemployment, of jobs lost through no fault of their own. Others are
facing reduction of income plus the bite of inflation. This is why I
have felt government too must tighten its belt when to do otherwise would
require a tax increase,
- 1 -
CSEA Institute on Government
Hopefully, the worst of the economic slump is over and we can look
forward to gradually improving economic conditions and more stable tax
revenues which will enable us to make this salary increase freeze
something that will not occur again.
Because this is an unusual year, I hope that we will have
i1
ot
your joyous acclaim at least your reluctant acceptance of a difficult
situation and understanding of the hard fiscal realities that forced us
to ask this sacrifice of you.
I appreciate the dedication to duty that California's career state
workers have shown in the past. I have always had a pride in your
performance belief that our employees are the best.
This belief is reinforced time and again. A few weeks ago, it wa
my honor to present California's highest decoration the State Med
of
Valor to 11 state employees. They earned this award for acts
heroism that extended "above and beyond the call of duty."
California has an exceptionally high caliber of public employees
within its state service. The competence, dedication and sense of
responsibility that you and your fellow state employees have shown over
the years is recognized far beyond the borders of our own state. At
governors' conferences my fellow governors very often speak (with some
envy) of the calibre of California's public servants.
For
many the highway patrolmen, prison guards, fire fighters
a
day's work may well include risking life and limb to protect or serve th
citizens of California. Danger is accepted as part of their daily job
and many of them have given their lives carrying out their oath to
protect you and me.
Yet the phrase "above and beyond the call of duty" is not
necessarily limited to those who serve in dangerous assignments. Most
of our state employees bring the same dedication to their daily tasks.
They work quietly and efficiently to provide the variety of services
that state government is obligated to maintain for the 20 million people
of California.
One major reason for this high level of performance by state
employees has been the traditional cooperative relationship that has
existed between management and the employees and their organizations.
- 2 -
CSEA Institute on Government
In discussing working conditions, pay and other matters, there have
been differences and disagreements. But we have always maintained an
atmosphere of cooperation rather than conflict. I want to do everything
I can to encourage this kind of cooperation because it serves the best
interests of everyone concerned.
Those two areas satisfactory working conditions, grievance
procedures and salary levels really constitute the main ingredients
of successful employer-employee relations. I would like to discuss
briefly each of these areas with you today.
When we met a year ago, I remember pledging to keep the lines of
communications open between the individual state employee and the
management structure of state government.
Since that time, we have put this into a more formal policy
statement an Executive Order outlining the responsibility of every
department manager to help create a grievance procedure that will assure
fair and prompt consideration of legitimate employee complaints.
In my own background there are 25 years of representing employees
to management. During those 25 years I learned that most problems can be
solved if there is an opportunity for fair and open discussion and an
honest, give-and-take grievance procedure.
The Executive Order I mentioned is an attempt to provide this type
of twe-way communication on employee complaints.
Every department of state government should have a well=administered
grievance procedure. And every supervisor should be aware of his
responsibility to help resolve legitimate employee complaints at the
lowest possible level.
We will need your help to make this new policy accomplish the goal
for which it is intended: better relations between management and
employees and a continuation of the cooperation we have had in the past.
Making it work will require a follow-through on the part of
supervisors to assure that legitimate complaints are answered as promptly
as possible. The fact that management is willing to listen, to meet and
confer in good faith, is an important part of maintaining mutual trust
and respect.
But grievances and complaints need not be the only contribution of
this improved method of communication. It is my hope that we can make
this a two-way avenue to serve both management and the employees.
- 3 -
CSEA Institute on Government
It can also serve as a way of offering positive ways of improving
state government. This administration is interested in hearing every
suggestion for a better way of doing things. Many of the efficiencies
we have introduced into state government in recent years have been the
suggestions of career state employees.
Those of you who are in the field and on the front line of state
operations often are the first to recognize cost-saving possibilities.
We would like to hear them. Let me assure you, we welcome innovation
and ingenuity.
State employees have a vital dollars-and-cents stake in efficient
and cost-conscious government. When there is extravagance and
duplication resources are spread thin and good employees must share
with those who are not pulling their weight. But efficient government
is not just a matter of using space and manpower wisely and produc
Efficient government also includes getting on with such long
steps as tax and welfare reforms---reforms that will restore fairness
to our tax structure and bring the soaring cost of public welfare under
reasonable control.
A day before the April 15 tax deadline is an appropriate time to
point out how much of a dollars and cents stake you have in tax reform,
a subject that has been discussed for years in the legislature.
If the program we proposed last year had been adopted, every one who
pays state income taxes would have paid 35 percent less this April 15
because of the one-time withholding "forgiveness" that was part of the
program.
A married homeowner with a $20,000 home who owed $200 in state
income taxes would be paying only $130 instead of $200 tomorrow. And
he also would have had a reduction of $112 in his property taxes. That
is a total of $182 in tax relief. That is how much the inaction on tax
reform is costing the citizen in that tax bracket.
A single renter who owes $100 in state income taxes this year would
be paying only $15 if tax reform had been put into effect as we wanted
last year. In addition, to to the one-time 35 percent income tax
"forgiveness," renters would have received a $50 tax credit, making the
combined tax relief $85. Even using new math, fifteen dollars is a less
painful bite than $100.
4 -
institute on Government
That is why tax reform is important. The failure to take action
in this field has cost you money.
But it is the responsibility of elected state officials in the
executive and legislative branches to propose and enact into law these
necessary reforms.
You and your co-workers have been doing a tremendous job in helping
hold down the cost of government through better administration. You have
done your part. Now it is time for those in elected office to do their
part.
Earlier, I mentioned working conditions and effective grievance
procedures as a necessary part of good employer-employee relations. Our
new Executive Order is an effort to recognize this need in a constructive
way---by improving communications within the limits of current law and
the state's organizations structure.
The second factor involves salary levels, and the state's effort
to provide fair and equitable compensation and fringe benefits.
This year, there are some long-sought improvements in state
employee fringe benefits.
You have already heard the bad news about the state's inability to
provide a general cost-of-living increase. But with bad news there should
always be at least some good news and I hope these things we can do will
be of some help.
For the first time, unemployment insurance is being extended to state
employees as well as time and one-half for overtime and money to finance
night differential payments fox those employees who must work regularly
in the evening hours.
The state is funding the usual merit increase program that provides
5 percent salary-step pay increases this year to about 40 percent of state
employees who have not yet reached the top of their classifications.
We are including an additional $2 per month per employee for health
insurance, bringing the state's contribution up to $12 per month per
employee.
In addition to these improvements, which were announced in the budge:
message, we have been seeking other ways of recognizing the acknowledged
need to upgrade the overall fringebenefit structure for state employees.
- 5 -
CSEA Institute on Government
These are benefits which the major state employee groups have been
seeking for a number of years. We hope they will be accepted as we
intend them as at least a partial recognition of the state's
appreciation for the dedication our employees have shown.
As citizen-taxpayers who also happen to be state employees, you are
well aware of the reforms we have been trying to achieve in state
government. Our goal is not punitive nor is it change for change's sake.
We need these fundamental reforms in state government because our
working
citizens
and that includes every one here today simply
cannot afford the type of unrestrained growth in government costs we
have had in the past.
Nowhere is reform needed more desperately than in the area of
public welfare. Because we must stretch our resources to accommodate
so many, welfare is cheating those it is designed to serve---our needy
and disadvantaged citizens. It is being rejected by the general publi
as a failure because of the abuses and the virtually unrestrained cost
in taxes and it is penalizing you twice over because state employees
pay a double price for every year welfare reform is delayed.
As citizen-taxpayers, the excessive cost of welfare eats intoyour
take-home pay in taxes and minimizes the prospect of additional tax
relief. And you are penalized a second time because welfare's
insatiable appetite for tax dollars is eroding the state's ability to
finance the salary increases you deserve.
You are probably familiar with the many court decisions on welfare
which have been directed against California and other states in recent
years. These are not abstract points of law that provide provocative
topics for legal journals. The price of almost every one of these
decisions can be counted in the millions of dollars
money that is
desperately needed to finance other vital areas of government.
This year, for example, it would cost about $62 million to provide
a fifth consecutive 5 percent across the board salary increase for all
state employees whose salaries are financed through General Fund revenues.
Curiously enough that is almost the exact amount the state is forced to
pay in additional welfare costs as a result of the U.S. Supreme Court
ruling which wiped out our one-year residency requirement for welfare.
The welfare reform we sponsored last year Culd have saved an
estimated $100 million. That much money could finance a general salary
increase of 5 percent for all state employees, including those in higher
education and special fund agencies.
The program we are sponsoring this year would cut welfare costs by
more than twice that amount. It would bring the cost of welfare within
the state's ability to finance without depriving other vital areas of
government a proper share of fiscal support as our revenues begin
normal growth again.
These statistics are not offered as an excuse
merely fact
painful and costly fact.
Most state employees provide services that are totally unconnected
with the welfare program. You have no direct link to welfare and no
reason to excuse its abuses and inefficiencies. On the contrary, you
have twice as much reason as other taxpayers to be shocked and upset
about the growth of welfare.
With reform, we can restore welfare to its proper and legitimate
place in government. And I pledge to you when we have this financial
monster under control I will do everything in my power to put salary
adjustments at the top of the state's priority list. The state should
be paying for performance rather than wasteful welfare abuses.
####
(NOTE: Since Governor Reagan speaks from notes there may be changes
in, or additions to, the above text. However, the governor
will stand by the above quotes.)
- 7 -
4/23
X
of
of
of
#
OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR
RELEASE: SATURDAY A.Ms.
Sacramento, California
April 24, 1971
Contact:
Paul Beck
445-4571
4-23-71
EXCERPTS OF REMARKS BY GOVERNOR RONALD REAGAN
Young Americans for Freedom Convention
"Salute to George Murphy" Dinner
Anaheim, California
April 23, 1971
Webster defines the word "honorable" as "deserving of honor of
great renown
characterized by integrity
"
No other word than "honorable" is sufficient to describe George
Murphy and his long service to his state and country. It sums up the
kind of dedication to America that seems to be out of fashion with the
New Left.
But it is not out of fashion with you or a majority of our people,
young and old. And neither is your kind of dedication to American
principles.
It is a privilege for me to be asked to participate in your "Salute
to George Murphy." We are old friends and we have fought on the same
side, in our profession and in our public careers. He never flinched
from a tough decision or backed away from a fight.
We first became friends as fellow board members of the Screen Actors
Guild in Hollywood in spite of the fact that he was a Republican and I
was an enthusiastic New Deal Democrat. But we were united in a cause
that should find all of us united today. At that time it was the
Communist attempt to take over the picture business. You literally had
to lay your career on the line to oppose them in that contest. I saw
George Murphy stand up as one of the first men in motion pictures to do
battle against them.
He is still engaged in that particular battle and so are you and I.
It is one of the reasons we are together here tonight.
At a time when the Soviet Union was developing the SS9 rocket---25
times more powerful than our Minuteman George Murphy supported efforts
to build up America's defenses. He stood up to be counted in favor of
an ABM defense system for America. He did not have to test a wind gauge
or take a poll to decide his stand on the SST. Because George Murphy
believes it is essential that America maintain its leadership in aerospace
technology, he has fought against every effort to dismantle or downgrade
the tremendous aerospace technical team that made sure the first man on
the moon was an American.
- 1 -
"Salute to George Murphy" Dinner
Unlike his successor, when it came to the crucial issues that may
determine whether this nation survives, he would rather fight than switch.
Holding fast to principle sometimes carries a high price and George
is a big spender in that one field he will pay the price for standing
on principle.
He and I and your parents lived through a nightmare era in which
America had to struggle for its very life. We learned to sift the myths
from the realities. And the reality is that we dare not let America
drift into the isolationism that almost cost the world its freedom a
generation ago. We cannot afford to believe the myth that there are no
enemies at large. There are and they are combat lean and hungry for all
we possess ready to strike the instant they detect a softness on our
part or an unwillingness to sacrifice the easy life in the defense of our
freedoms.
Now I know that this hard reality is not popular with everyone on
campus these days. Last year, a young lady from one of our universities
made it chillingly clear why there is a generation gap. She was bright
and very courteous, but she informed me that our generation is not
capable of making rational decision on the world scene because we
subscribe to the myth that the Soviet Union somehow constitutes a threat
to the safety of the United States.
Her authority for that viewpoint is the history she apparently
learned from a number of distinguished historians. According to them, it
is the United States that has aggressive ambitions which cause the
Soviets to arm defensively for protection.
Logic obviously is not part of the approved course for at least some
history teachers. I have a question for her and for them. If indeed
America does have agressive designs on the world, then how do we explain
those days after World War II when the United States had the greatest
military strength in history and a monopoly on the nuclear bomb why
didn't America impose its will on the world? There is a second question:
if conditions had been reversed if the Soviet Union had possessed all
that strength and we had been the war-shattered nation would the world
still be even half free? Anyone who doubts the answer to that question
should ask someone from Latvia. Estonia, Poland or Czechoslovakia,
- 2 -
"Salute to George Murphy" Dinner
We dare not allow America to become weak and defenseless because if
we do, the day could come when we would not be divided into hawks or
doves
just pigeons.
Yet a strong defense against external aggression is only part of our
struggle. Young people need to arm themselves with the truth about
America's heritage if we are to preserve the freedoms we inherited.
Some young Americans who pride themselves on telling it like it is
have beer hearing it like it is not in one thousand social science
classes. Striking a blow for liberty does not mean beating up the dean.
Truth is the best weapon against these false prophets of the New Left.
Whether they are wearing sheep's clothing or blue jeans and love beads,
they preach a philosophy of hate and violence that is alien to America's
traditions.
It was alien to the first American revolutionists and so was the
excessive taxation and governmental repression that inspired the
founding of the United States.
Two hundred years ago, Edmund Burke mourned that the age of
chivalry had passed. He predicted it would be replaced by an era of
"sophisters, economists and calculators.'
He was so right. The Age of Aquarius is also the age of the planner
and the programmer government of the bureaucracy, by the bureaucracy
and for the bureaucracy. Restoring the role of the people in government
is what our struggle is all about. That is what George Murphy has been
working for
that is what Bill Brock fought for in Tennessee
that is
what caused Bob Dole to run for the Senate in Kansas and that is what
inspired Jim Buckley in New York.
Seven years ago, the philosophy that you and I share was dismissed
as a temporary fad of the sixties. After 1964, it was pronounced dead
and buried.
That premature obituary was wrong. The philosophy that unites all
Americans who believe in the things that made America great is alive
and doing well. Whether it is called conservatism, traditionalist or
Republican, Jim Buckley is one of its disciples and he is a new and
forceful advocate for freedom in Washington.
Despite some disappointments, the Buckley victory was not the only
sign of conservative political momentum. Bill Brock went to the Senate
in Tennessee and Albert Gore went home.
3 I I
"Salute to George Murphy" Dinner
Indeed, with all the election post mortems, there was a strange
silence about the most significant facet of the 1970 campaigns. When
the political experts counted and recounted the winners and losers
trying to establish whether the trend was liberal or conservative, they
often did not compare what it was the candidates were saying.
With some notable exceptions, our opponents were running on our
platform. Suddenly, the liberal apologists ran out of sociological
excuses for violent behavior. Everyone was for law and order.
After 30 years of building up the bureaucratic empires in Washington,
big government is now bad and decentralized government is good.
Some of the opposition even started conceding the unfair tax burden
that has been put on the middle-income citizens by spend thrift
government but you would never tell that from their ideas of tax
reform in Sacramento this year. Campaign promise does not always become
post election performance.
After 30 years of ignoring the plight of the working, productive
citizens of our country, the opposition started acknowledging the protest
of the "silent majority."
Reviewing their campaign oratory, we might say, "In their hearts,
they have learned we were right."
Yes, we have come a long way. And it is understandable that some
of us sometimes pause to reflect on this progress and perhaps even smile
a bit. After all, it is not every day you see Hubert Humphrey wearing
a hard hat.
But winning elections is only part of the battle. We are trying to
achieve a fundamental change of direction for government in its
relationship with the people of our country.
Because it means so much to our own freedoms, we know America must
vigorously exercise its leadership of the free world.
Government has been called a "contrivance of human wisdom." And we
have been asking if that is so, why has wisdom been at such a low ebb
so long?
We want to reassert the principle that government exists to serve
the people, not vice versa. We want people to learn to stand on their
own and not be dependent upon government
because a government that is
big enough to give you all you ask for is big enough to take away all
that you have.
- 4 -
"Salute to Goerge Murphy" Dinner
We want less government interference in all phases of life. We
want the working citizen to be free to keep more of his earnings to
dispose of as he wishes, according to his priorities not those set
by some faceless bureaucrat who is not accountable to the people.
We want America to reassert and revitalize a way of life that used
to be called "The American Dream a dream of equality of opportunity
and freedom for everyone to rise as high and travel as far as his own
talents and energies can take him.
These are not tasks for a single term in office. It is a task for
a generation.
We cannot expect election victories without struggle. We cannot
expect to persuade others that there is a better way than collectivist
control unless we fight for our cause in every forum open to us---on us on
campus, in the media and in political life.
A whole cult of political scientists, sociologists and economists
long entrenched in positions of power are determined to maintain the
bureaucratic establishment.
They have the future charted and programmed. And they are allied
with the power-hungry practitioners of old-style politics who are
desperately trying to regain or retain authority over the lives of our
people.
This coalition makes a powerful combination. It is unrealistic to
underestimate it.
They have no faith in the capacity of the people to govern themselves
and they are unwilling to surrender any of the power they have hoarded in
Washington for many years.
Our basic difference with this philosophy of centralization is a
humanist difference. We believe in the dignity of the individual.
Man is not an animal to be numbered, tagged or punched into a
computer tape. Men cannot be free in a government run by remote control.
In five short years, America will begin its third century under a
political system that has been called history's greatest experiment in
equality and self-government.
Those who founded our nation staked their lives, their fortunes and
their sacred honor in the struggle to give us this Republic. Can we
offer less to preserve it?
#####
( NOTE: Since Governor Reagan speaks from notes there may be changes in,
or additions to, the above text. However, the governor will