League of Women Voters of California Education Fund
Los Angeles County, CA November 2, 2004 Election
	Oscar A. Gutierrez Answers Questions Candidate for Member of the State Assembly; District 45

Read the answers from all candidates.

Questions & Answers

1. What does California need to do to address the current budget crisis?

I have a plan to cut 10% from the overall budget over two years. That's 9.6 billion dollars or 4.3 billion dollars each year at a 5% cut per year. We need to build a surplus for future fiscal problems. We also need to find out what is happening to the taxes collected from gasoline. Where is the money going? It is not going to building new freeways in California. Vote NO! on Prop. 55, Prop. 56, Prop. 57 & 58 !!!!

2. What should the state's priorities be for K-12 education? For the Community College System?

At this point I have no answer. Our Schools are so poorly managed. Before Governor Schwarzenegger invoked emergency powers and declared a fiscal crisis last year on December 18th our state was mandated by law to spend 40% of the yearly budget on education in California regardless of any deficit that was left by the former Gray Davis administration. That is approximately 39.4 billion dollars. My first question is where is all the money going to? And can we account for every dollar we spend on education? This would be a good question to ask Assemblywoman Jackie Goldberg since she is the chair of the education committee in the state assembly. Until we can get a handle on this budget I will Vote NO on Prop. 55. Another 12 billion dollars in bonds will not solve the problems our state has with funding education. Vote NO on Prop 55!

3. What measures would you support to address California's water needs?

We need to protect our water supply from being deregulated like they did to electricity. I do not support deregulation on this issue.

4. What should the Legislature be doing to address the needs of Californians without health insurance?

This should be a private sector problem. I do not support SB-2. We need to mandate that the state insurance commissioner John Garamendi investigate health insurance and workmans comp fraud.