Governor’s ‘Vision’ Is a Form of Myopia

Big-name politicians are often extolled for their “vision” the same loose way that as-yet-unreleased Hollywood blockbusters are automatically deemed “hits” and studio chiefs on their way out are lauded as “legends.”

Under the circumstances, then, it’s unsurprising that some newspapers described Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s State of the State speech last week as visionary. (“Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger outlined a broad vision to revamp state government,” etc., etc.)

But let’s remember that nearsightedness, too, is a form of vision -- and, with that, consider some of the elements of Schwarzenegger’s myopia, as he and his Cabinet members outlined them Wednesday evening.

He will call a special legislative session to pass a measure further restricting lawmakers’ flexibility in annual budgeting by mandating across-the-board spending cuts under certain circumstances. This is supposedly designed to help the Legislature “take back responsibility for the budget.”

He will renege on $2.2 billion in funding commitments he made last year to K-12 schools and community colleges and dump another $1.1 billion in pension bills on local school districts. This is part of his solution for what he called the “educational disaster” in California primary and secondary education.

He congratulated himself for fashioning a state budget (to be unveiled today) that he called “balanced,” except for the flaw that it will evidently make next year’s deficit even worse than this year’s. Its chief virtue -- perhaps its only virtue, judging from his words -- is that it “does not raise taxes.”

Several pundits around the state hailed the governor for his cockeyed optimism and experienced frissons of excitement at his threats to knock legislators’ heads together, like Moe unto Larry and Curly, if they don’t do things his way.

Some were especially taken with his proposal to change the process for creating congressional and legislative districts -- possibly a worthwhile goal, but not exactly the state’s top priority right now.

To give Schwarzenegger points, as some commentators did, for mapping out an innovative program on everything except the budget is like saying that Oliver Stone’s “Alexander” was a successful movie except for the script, the acting and the directing.

In this state at this moment, the governor has no job except to fix the budget. With that in mind, it’s worth examining what he means by a budget that “does not raise taxes” but does cut spending.

A spending cut is, essentially, a tax increase by another name -- it simply shifts money from one group to another. It might raise the cost of a service for those who are its direct users, say, by forcing them to dig into their own pockets or to shoulder the price of going without, while relieving others in the community of the general cost of providing it.

For instance, if you deprive K-12 education of $2.2 billion it was otherwise due, resulting in the elimination of some basic programs, you’ve merely shifted some of the cost of effectively educating children from the general taxpayers -- who are disproportionately affluent and include many who can buy their kids a private education -- to those who have no other educational choice but the public schools.

This latter group, obviously, is disproportionately middle-class and poor. They may have to pay for enrichment programs because their schools can’t drill their kids in math or teach them art or music, or they may pay the cost of having undereducated offspring. Either way, it’s a tax.

So, what does it mean when the business leaders in the California Chamber of Commerce keep telling us how desperately they need a well-educated workforce -- and then praise the governor for his fiscal restraint? It means that their real priority isn’t a better school system, it’s no new taxes -- on them.

What’s concealed by Schwarzenegger’s no-tax language is that during his administration, virtually all these cost shifts have gone in the same direction -- from the top down.

The truth is that he has imposed plenty of “tax increases.” Schoolteachers paid more taxes because Schwarzenegger canceled a teacher tax break. University students paid more for their education. And those who rely on local government services paid more through higher user fees, reduced police coverage and more potholes on their neighborhood streets.

This concept of budgeting exposes the fatuity of Schwarzenegger’s rhetoric. The governor, who delivered to the Chamber of Commerce 100% of its legislative wish list last year, had the gall to advise the Legislature to “ignore the lobbyists” as a way of demonstrating “political courage.”

As yet, he still shows no signs of taking the truly courageous step of reconsidering the state’s ridiculous structure of income, sales and property taxes, which has been in need of redesign for nearly two decades.

Schwarzenegger tried to preempt some of the howls of outrage that greeted his underwhelming platform last week by predicting, rather proudly, that it would generate hostility from “special interests,” a category that he has apparently winnowed down to state employees, Indian tribes, schoolteachers and schoolchildren.

But one wonders how much longer he can market the charade that he has the broad interests of the state’s residents at heart. For all that he proclaimed in his speech his determination to work hard on “the people’s business,” so far it still looks as though what he’s really doing is giving the people the business.

Golden State appears every Monday and Thursday. You

can reach Michael Hiltzik at golden.state@latimes.com and read his previous columns at latimes.com/hiltzik.