Schwarzenegger could learn from Obama’s share-the-pain message

I hope Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger listened closely from his choice seat. Because President Obama’s inaugural address was a stark reminder of what has been missing from political discourse in California: the notion of individual sacrifice for the common good.

Not just share-the-wealth sacrifice. But share-the-pain across the entire economic spectrum -- the pain of sharply reduced public services for the poor, higher taxes for the rich and both afflictions for the middle-class.

It’s the only cure for a sick state government before it further infects the failing California economy by virtually shutting down, except for making basic payments to schools and cutting checks for bond holders. Other than that, the state will be forced to pay with IOUs -- including tax refunds -- and halt more construction projects.

State bookkeepers are warning that what Schwarzenegger fears could be “a financial Armageddon” will strike next month unless the governor and the Legislature can finally agree on how to close a projected $42-billion budget deficit covering the current and next fiscal years, ending June 30, 2010.

The Legislature’s two Democratic leaders, Assembly Speaker Karen Bass of Los Angeles and Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg of Sacramento, told reporters in a telephone conference call from Washington on Wednesday that they’re optimistic California will receive a slice of federal bailout money “in the range of $10 billion.”

That’s iffy, however, and still not nearly enough to balance the books in Sacramento. “We don’t have a choice,” Steinberg said. “We have to cut. We have to raise revenues.”

But the politicians aren’t really selling that message to the public. They don’t even seem to be trying. There’s little talk of everybody sacrificing -- just those other people: the rich or the welfare beneficiaries. Or maybe both, if you’re middle-class.

About the only sacrifice Schwarzenegger has been shouting about is political sacrifice. He routinely exhorts legislators to abandon their ideological corners.

The governor and Democratic leaders have proposed separate budget-balancing plans and rejected the other side’s. But neither side has tried to build public support for its proposals -- each probably for the same reason.

Schwarzenegger doesn’t want to advertise the fact that after promising during his reelection campaign not to raise taxes, he now concedes a whopping tax increase is indeed necessary.

But his unwillingness to sell a tax hike to the public, explaining why it’s vital even in a recession, makes it career-threatening for Republicans to vote for higher taxes. They need political cover from the governor in their conservative districts.

Democrats don’t want to alienate their political patrons, the teachers unions, by trying to sell the public on school spending cuts.

Moreover, they haven’t been willing to buck public employee unions and support fewer paid holidays for state workers and a reform of overtime abuse. And they really don’t want to get into scaling back public employee benefits -- pensions and retiree healthcare -- that in a rapidly changing world far exceed the private sector’s and are ticking time bombs.

Contrast that with Obama’s blunt message. Referring to all Americans, he lamented “our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age.” He asserted: “Our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions -- that time has surely passed.”

The new president saluted the generations that have “struggled and sacrificed . . . so that we might live a better life.”

He also proclaimed -- no doubt a bit prematurely -- “an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for too long have strangled our politics.”

Any of those observations could apply to Californians and Sacramento.

But the main focus these days of state political leaders -- especially the governor-- is the blame game.

Rather than try to sell the public on an unpopular idea like a tax increase, or even education cuts, Schwarzenegger beats up on unpopular legislators and tries to generate public pressure on them. But that has been increasingly unproductive. All it does is help drive down the Legislature’s already dismal poll ratings.

Schwarzenegger has cleaned up his act since the early years of his governorship. He no longer calls Democratic lawmakers “girlie men” and “losers.” But they’re still irresistible targets as he sends out mixed signals.

He routinely accuses them of “posturing and playing political games” and trying to “punish the people” with big tax hikes, which is both demagogic and hypocritical. Then he tries to make up with sweet talk about “my partners.”

He regularly rails about “Sacramento’s overspending,” ignoring the fact that no spending bill is enacted without the governor’s signature.

Of course, voters also are big spenders -- passing everything from pork-saturated park bonds to bullet train extravaganzas without considering the cost.

Schwarzenegger should start leveling with Californians about the severity of the necessary pain and the depth of the revenue problem. For example, the governor could fire every state employee under his control and that still wouldn’t balance the budget. Roughly 70% of the general fund flows out to local governments and schools.

“I get the sense that people are willing to make hard choices and sacrifices if they’re asked,” says Mark Baldassare, pollster and president of the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California. “But what they would like most is to have some direction from our leaders. . . . And that’s what they haven’t heard.”

Baldassare says polling has shown that there’s a slight movement toward the middle -- toward acceptance and sacrifice -- by both the anti-tax and pro-spending voter blocs.

Schwarzenegger should take a cue from Obama and try to build up the public’s tolerance to pain.

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george.skelton@latimes.com