Republican Gubernatorial Candidate Neel Kashkari to Speak in San Diego

Republican gubernatorial candidate Neel Kashkari is scheduled to speak today at the monthly meeting of the San Diego Republican Party, calling for party unity "in holding Gov. Jerry Brown accountable for the destruction of the middle class," an aide said.

In first public appearance since finishing second behind Brown in Tuesday's primary, Kashkari will also discuss his platform of "creating good jobs and ensuring every student gets a good education."

Kashkari, a former Treasury Department official making his first run for office, has released a jobs plan titled "Rebuilding the Middle Class" that calls for:

• excusing manufacturing companies from paying state corporate income tax for 10 years if they locate in California and create 100 jobs or open new manufacturing facilities
• working with federal officials to pass free trade bills to open new markets for California goods
• canceling the proposed high-speed rail project and redirecting the bond money for it to increase water storage
• pushing safe development of the Monterey Shale Formation through fracking
• creating an energy and environment task force to identify and address impediments to fracking
• adopting flex time rules to allow for greater cooperation between employers and workers
• capping non-economic personal injury rewards at $250,000 to match the state's medical malpractice limit.

On the kindergarten through 12th grade level, Kashkari's education plan, "Transforming Our Schools To Lift Achievement, Reduce Income Inequality & Eradicate Poverty," calls for:

• rerouting state funding education directly to school sites instead of districts so teachers, principals and parents can decide how the funding is spent
• eliminating the vast majority of the California Education Code, providing all schools with the flexibility charter schools have
• bringing vocational training back to schools
• lengthening the school day and school year
• rewarding great teachers
• ensuring resource and facility parity for charter schools and removing the yearly limit of 100 new charter schools.

On the college level, it calls for;

• linking campus performance to state funding
• establishing different goals for the three higher education segments - - community colleges, California State University system and University of California system
• rewarding progress to maintain the integrity of degree and certification completion
• mandating that all University of California and State University campuses place 20 percent of their courses online within four years
• providing free tuition to science, technology, engineering and mathematics students in exchange for a small interest in their future earnings.