Renewing his call on business to work with government in a "radical conversation in the middle," Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on Wednesday urged local business leaders to help solve the state's problems and boost its commitment to education.
 
By increasing tuition while cutting the budgets of public colleges and universities, he said, "we are pricing the middle class out of education."
 
"We are making it that so many people can no longer get the education they need to get ahead."
 
Villaraigosa's remarks to the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce came more than a week after a similar speech in Sacramento, where he pitched reforms to Proposition 13 - including an increase in property taxes on business - and tied them to other business fixes he sees as needed to generate more revenue for the state.
 
"I am not just taking on Proposition 13," Villaraigosa said. "I wouldn't put that target on my head. What I want is to have a discussion on what we can do to restore the luster to this state."
 
In addition to looking at changes to Proposition. 13, Villaraigosa said the state needed to balance that with reforms to government regulations and corporate taxation, credits for certain business and reforming the California Environmental Quality Act.
 
"I am looking for a deeper and more lasting conversation on how we invest in California," Villaraigosa said.
The mayor said he has begun talks with officials at the California Chamber of Commerce and has heard from a number of state legislators thanking him for raising the topic.
 
"I've received a lot of `Go brother,' type of calls for providing them with cover," Villaraigosa said.
However, one person adamantly against any change in Proposition 13 is Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.
 
"The mayor should just look to the left and the right as he drives down the streets of his city," Coupal said.
"Look at all the businesses that are boarded up. If anyone should be defending all of Proposition 13, it should be the mayor.
 
"For him to suggest higher taxes on business demonstrates a total disconnect with what ordinary taxpayers are facing."
 
Coupal disputed arguments that funding for education has dropped as a result of Proposition 13.
 
"If you look at the figures adjusted for inflation, we are spending 30 percent more for K-12 than we did before Proposition 13 was approved," Coupal said.
 
"The issue is not a lack of money. It is the issue of how the money is spent and the stranglehold unions have on the state. Maybe that's where the mayor should address his concerns."
 
Villaraigosa said he has worked with and against the unions on various issues and that a refusal to discuss the state's problems show what is wrong.
 
"We need to think smarter, broader and deeper," Villaraigosa said. "Things are broken on the left and broken on the right. We need to have a conversation, a radical conversation in the middle to change this broken system."