Sacramento Hostages

The budget that Gov. George Deukmejian submitted to the Legislature this month is about $3 billion short of covering state needs in education, transportation, health and other programs. Just about everyone in Sacramento who can count, regardless of party, understands that--probably including the governor.

Without more money and an end to--or major changes in--the limits on spending it that were imposed in 1979 by the Gann amendment, Sacramento cannot produce a budget that will allow the state to shore up the foundations of public education, public works and public services that it needs to compete in an international economy and still be a an appealing place to live. And time is running out. The governor and the Legislature might get a break from the economy that will allow them to do some of what needs doing, but the best that they can hope for is a windfall that will tide them over for one year. Tiding the state over, with the projections of huge growth in the near future, is not enough.

So far, Sacramento’s politicians are as silent on the matter of the need for more money as though their mouths were taped shut, hostages to Paul Gann’s politics of mediocrity that put California in its untenable position, fearful that California voters will punish them if they speak out.

The Gann plan, imposed by a small minority of California voters during an off-year election in 1979, allows the budget to rise only as fast as the consumer price index, adjusted for population. It is a meaningless index, measuring neither California’s ability to pay for public services nor the state’s need for those services.

Bill Honig, state superintendent of public instruction, has made a sound case that the new budget leaves schools hundreds of millions of dollars short of what it will take to continue school reforms, and he is trying to rally support for changing the Gann spending limits to reflect the ability of Californians to pay for the services that they need.

But so far he is all alone. Others in Sacramento who know as well as Honig does that the state budget does not pass muster talk of stopgap measures such as financing transportation improvements with bonds rather than leveling with voters about the need for a substantial increase in the gasoline tax to keep up with California’s growth. Others settle for gimmicks that would bypass the Gann limits temporarily, even though they realize that Gann imposes limits even on the gimmicks.

Since colonial times, Americans have turned over matters of government to elected officials to free them up to farm or build, to help children with homework and tend to really important things. They did not regard government as unimportant, but they divided the labor so that politicians were to advise; voters, when the advice made sense, to consent.

The system has never been perfect, but it will not work at all if elected officials, for reasons of philosophy or timidity, refuse even to offer advice, as is the case in Sacramento these days.