Feinstein Says Budget May Tie Next Governor’s Hands

Democrat Dianne Feinstein expressed concern Friday that the budget breakthrough announced in Sacramento would just shift some of California’s fiscal problems to the next administration in January, when she hopes to take office as governor.

“I view it all with a great deal of caution,” Feinstein said in response to questions at a campaign forum in Los Angeles sponsored by the Jewish Community Relations Committee.

The former San Francisco mayor also said that, if elected, she would attempt to balance her first budget without any tax increases. If that is not possible, Feinstein said, she probably would favor raising taxes on the wealthiest 2% of Californians, rather than on the poor and the working middle class. This would mostly offset tax windfalls the rich received during the 1980s, she said.

Feinstein’s Republican opponent, Sen. Pete Wilson, withheld comment on the budget agreement.

Feinstein has proposed expansion of a number of state programs, but the only specific new source of funds she has endorsed is an increase in the state’s share of lottery proceeds to pay for additional early childhood education.

She expressed concern that the proposed new budget was “back-loaded” by shifting some costs into the next fiscal year. Gov. George Deukmejian will prepare his final budget before he leaves office in early January. Either Feinstein or Wilson will inherit that budget and then face the chore of revising it in line with her or his own priorities.

For Feinstein, the challenge also would include budget reform.

“We need to correct the structural imbalance of the budget,” referring to those programs that are growing faster than the revenues needed to pay for them.

“We need to tie in revenue sources with problem-solving so that people also feel that their money isn’t being frittered away,” she said.

“I don’t want to be the governor--nobody does--that raises taxes on people,” she said. “I want to be as cautious and prudent as I can. . . . What I’m going to do as governor is reinstitute a sense of trust that money is going to be used wisely and well and prudently, with no froufrou, but basic structural problem-solving.”