Atrophy in Sacramento

Gov. George Deukmejian and the Democratic Legislature have about 48 hours to finish writinga budget that they should have put behind them weeks ago. If they fail again, California will move toward chaos in its trial courts and will watch already inadequate health programs shrivel up even more.

The chances of a happy ending are not good. It no longer takes much to make the governor and the Legislature start prowling around each other, stiff-legged and bristly. In this case it has taken nothing at all.

Assemblyman Phillip Isenberg (D-Sacramento) has crafted a plan to collect an assortment of state taxes earlier than usual this year to help make up for a shortfall in state revenue that none of Sacramento’s tax experts warned might be coming.

Together with money that the governor has held in reserve since he vetoed a number of programs from the Legislature’s budget, the early-collection plan would produce enough moneyto get California’s governments--particularly its poverty-stricken counties--through another budget year.

The governor apparently has decided that California’s well-being depends not so much on his providing adequate services to its citizens as on his keeping a promise not to raise taxes. So the Isenberg plan has no tax increases.

The governor wants more money for the Corrections Department. The money is available underthe Isenberg plan. So are the other things that the governor wants--including enough money to carry out a pledge to California’s counties that the cost of operating trial courts would be picked up by Sacramento.

Most counties are counting on the court money, but the July version of the state budget contains only about half what it will cost to keep trial courts open for a full budget year.

The Legislature is holding out not only for more money for the courts but also for money to restore mental health, trauma centers and other health programs that were cut in July. There is money in the Isenberg plan for those things as well.

That Sacramento continues to circle the plan as though it were a trap is outrageous behavior in officials who were elected to make policy decisions on matters of no small importance to citizens. The governor has said nothing at all about what he thinks would be a good settlement, so Republicans in the Legislature cannot be counted on to vote for the plan. Democrats in the Senate late Tuesday said that they had a plan of their own, but they would not discuss it.

It has been one thing to watch Sacramento fumble major policy over and over again until the only hope for a decision lay in forcing voters to choose through the ballot. It is quite another thing to discover that the atrophy in Sacramento may be so far advanced that state government cannot even write a budget.