Rescue California

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Transcript of gubernatorial recall debate

September 24, 2003

Page 17

it that the managers are all stealing all over the country? In fact, there was a study done for two years, and this was a ways back, but it was very interesting. It showed that of the largest 538 corporations, in two years, 67 percent of them violated the law. There is no other neighborhood with that type of criminal record. So the corporations, what we need to do is get the rule of law established. We have companies with felony convictions every single year. Nobody goes to jail. Part of the problem is that the owners of these corporations, the largest ones, are the pension funds. And working people actually own these companies and don't even know it. What we need to do is democratize, change our 1937 act, democratize our pension funds so they can exercise control. You know what we should've done during the energy crisis with these corporations? Voted out all of their boards and put law-abiding citizens in there and stop them in their tracks.

MODERATOR: Thank you.

CAMEJO: That's what the answer to this problem is. Business is welcome in California and has been super-welcome. Their tax is as low as it can possibly go.

MODERATOR: We are going to end this particular subject with an answer from Arnold Schwarzenegger.

SCHWARZENEGGER: I think that I agree with Tom, that we have the worst business climate right now, anywhere in the nation. And I think this is what drives businesses and jobs out of the state, and I think that we have to reverse that. Because the only way we can pay off our inherited debt, which experts are now saying is between $12 and $20 billion, and deal with also the current operating deficit, is by bringing businesses back. Because if we bring businesses back, we bring jobs back. And when we bring jobs back and the economy is booming, then we create more revenue and then we can afford some of the programs and are also able to pay off the debt, which is important, because we are not going to get any more credit now the way things are going right now.

CITIZEN'S QUESTION: What services will your administration expect local governments to provide, and what sort of stable funding will you give them to do it?

MODERATOR: All right, you're still on deck for this one, Arnold Schwarzenegger.

SCHWARZENEGGER: I think it's very important that we have a good relationship between the local and state government right now. It doesn't really make much sense. I think that first of all that the local government should continue with the service that they're providing right now, but it is wrong for the state to go there and take half of the property tax away and then have the cities, the local government, go up there lobbying in Sacramento continuously to get their money back. I think that they know best how to spend the money. The local people down on the ground, they know which program they need, how to incorporate education. Each one of the communities have different needs. I think they should continue with the services. If it's job training or if it's drug rehabilitation programs or the services they provide with police or fire department -- all of those kind of things that they should have their own way of funding those programs.

CANEJO: Arnold, it's Pete Wilson, your campaign director, who took the money from the counties and then...