For Immediate Release: December 8, 2004

Provides lawmakers with practical agenda to rejuvenate business, education, and technology

SAN FRANCISCO – As California struggles to regain its economic health, the Pacific Research Institute (PRI) released three policy agendas that provide Governor Schwarzenegger and the legislature with immediate, practical reforms in business, education, and technology.

“On economic policy, state lawmakers should have three priorities in 2005 – reform the civil litigation system, enact a tax-and-spending limitation, and hold the line against tax increases,” said PRI’s Lawrence J. McQuillan, director of business and economic studies. On the latter issue, he cautions that “California should learn from past mistakes – states can’t tax their way back to prosperity.”

Lance T. Izumi, PRI’s director of education studies, offers a simple tool for improving the school accountability system so that the state can meet its No Child Left Behind requirements. He proposes an easily implemented testing model that would allow schools to monitor and improve achievement growth for individual students. Izumi also provides a blueprint for improving teacher quality and high school education.

On high-tech issues, PRI’s technology director Sonia Arrison says that “California should raise the UNE-P (unbundled network element platforms) rates or scrap the implementation entirely.” She also calls for repealing the “Telecommunications Consumer Bill of Rights,” a misguided policy that has grown into a costly tangle of harmful regulations.

Arrison’s third recommendation is for the governor and legislature to strictly define the authority and power of the Public Utilities Commission (PUC), a body currently angling to stretch its regulatory oversight. “If California is to remain the land of innovators, it must allow developing technology to flourish, rather than taxing and regulating it pre-emptively,” she said.

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About PRI
For more than two decades, the Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy (PRI) has championed individual liberty through free markets. PRI is a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to promoting the principles of limited government, individual freedom, and personal responsibility.