Dropping the Ball on Leadership : Governor’s No-Proposal Budget Is Political Cowardice

When a leader abdicates leadership, is that person still a leader?

When Gov. George Deukmejian dropped his budget-balancing $800-million tax proposal last Friday because, as he said, “the proposed adjustments have been so misrepresented to such an extent that they are now perceived to be a tax increase even though they are not,” he washed his hands of California’s fiscal problems.

The governor simply decided to take his ball and go home. Because he didn’t like the press coverage of his play, he decided to quit in the fourth quarter. Real leaders don’t give up the ball in the fourth quarter. They ask for it; they demand it.

A little background is in order.

The governor proposed a budget in January that was balanced, included a $1-billion reserve and funded existing program levels. It was vintage Deukmejian. It wasn’t creative; it wasn’t generous; it was, however, balanced, as the California Constitution requires.

In May, after learning that his Department of Finance had overestimated incoming revenues by more than $1 billion, the governor wisely and honestly announced his intent to correct the revenue shortfall by adjusting tax indexes, adopting federal conformity for bank and corporation taxes and suspending net-operating-loss provisions.

As a result of his proposal, the budget was once again balanced, including a reserve of $60 million.

I congratulated the governor for his sensible and credible leadership.

Late last week the Assembly Ways and Means Committee finished its work on the governor’s budget proposal, adopting about $480 million in additional spending proposals. The result was a balanced budget with less of a reserve but with more funding for urgent needs like AIDS, education and prenatal care.

The Assembly and Senate budget proposals both included the revenue proposed by the governor through his tax-adjustment proposal, as well as $300 million in spending cuts.

Last Friday afternoon we learned, through the media, that the governor had dropped his revenue proposal to prevent anyone from writing or saying that he had proposed a tax increase.

Later he governor went one step further, announcing that regardless of need or circumstance he would never propose a tax increase. Now there’s a courageous proposal.

I take my congratulations back. I thought that the governor had finally added some positive leadership to his customary style of holding the line--leadership by denial. I was mistaken.

Not only has the governor continued to deny that he had proposed a tax increase, he has now--in an amazing display of political cowardice--decided to drop his entire proposal.

This raises several issues:

--The California Constitution requires the governor to propose a balanced budget. As far as I’m concerned, Deukmejian has failed in this regard. He has turned his back on California’s budget and, indirectly, on all Californians. The governor’s proposed budget, as revised in May by his Administration, is now more than $200 million in the red--with no reserve.

--Will the public buy this phony and disheartening attempt to dodge responsibility for California’s fiscal problems? Will people finally recognize the timidity and lack of leadership of this Administration?

--Finally, and most important, what do the people of California want the Legislature to do now that the governor has so clearly walked away from his responsibilities, preferring political expediency to statesmanship?

The governor’s action amounts to an $800-million cut in a budget already stretched to capacity. Lest anyone suspect otherwise, consider just how stretched a budget must be to force this governor to consider a tax increase, no matter how meager or disguised.

It’s now quite likely that deliberation over the budget will drag on past the Legislature’s June 15 constitutional deadline. In a vacuum of executive leadership, it’s difficult to estimate just what will happen.

I have said all along that our current revenue shortfall is no one’s fault and everyone’s responsibility. The governor’s decision to renege on his proposal tells me that not only does he not consider the problem his responsibility, also he considers it to be solely the Legislature’s problem. Such a posture is neither fair, accurate nor constructive.

As a co-author of the budget--for eight years now--I’m tired of these charades, these self-serving media antics. I don’t care whether the governor calls it a tax increase, a “temporary minimal revenue adjustment” or a fudge sundae. I do think that it’s time he put the legitimate needs and aspirations of the people before the politics of cynicism and symbolism.