Budget overtime

NOT SINCE 1986 HAS THE Legislature met the constitutional deadline for approving the state budget and sending it to the governor. Lawmakers insisted that they would end their losing streak this year, helped along as they were by several billion dollars in unexpected tax revenues. But they blew it again, letting June 15 slip by without a vote on the budget.

It’s tempting to say that the failure means nothing because there are no real consequences unless lawmakers miss their second deadline -- the end of the current fiscal year on June 30. But it makes them look bad, especially because their partisan rivalries and policy rancor could so easily be tucked comfortably underneath that blanket of extra cash.

Republicans object to Democrats’ plans to use some of the windfall to expand a healthcare program for low-income children because much of the aid would go to illegal immigrants. Even if Republican legislators are genuinely standing up for their beliefs, which is doubtful, it’s hard to fathom their objection to health insurance for children who might otherwise end up in public hospital emergency rooms at taxpayer expense. And even their governor disagrees with them. Arnold Schwarzenegger included an expansion of healthcare for all children, including those here illegally, in his May budget proposal.

Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez (D-Los Angeles) last week charged that the Republican lawmakers were just looking for a something not to like, with the added bonus of being able to thrust the year’s hottest topic -- illegal immigration -- into the debate. It’s hard to find fault with Nunez’s analysis.

The two parties also disagree, or say they do, over how to most prudently erase $1 billion in debt. Republicans like the governor’s plan to pay off his 2004 economic recovery bonds now, even though they don’t come due for several years. Democrats say they want to pay off debts that come due even sooner, but they want to put the money in a reserve fund for now. Republicans don’t trust them.

They are agonizingly close and need not have missed the June 15 deadline. It may be that they were beguiled by several days of pleasant breezes that blew off the delta and swept away the usual Sacramento summer swelter. But the heat was back on by Thursday afternoon, when they should have been passing their budget bill. That second deadline looms, and if lawmakers blow it -- as they have every year since 2001 -- the state must hold up payments to counties, schools, contractors and employees.

There’s a third deadline this year, printed on the World Cup tickets in Nunez’s possession. The speaker has acknowledged that he wants to be in Germany by July 5. That will give him extra urgency in budget talks with the governor and Senate leaders. Too bad the World Cup comes only once every four years.