The Birth of a Salesman : Pete Wilson now has to sell a very tough budget

Pete Wilson, in only his first week as governor, has already, if inadvertently, proffered Californians somewhat different messages. The first was contained in his inaugural address that was a sweet symphony of nonpartisanship. It left even the most partisan Democrats admiring his performance. But the second message, contained in the governor’s first budget proposal, left many people puzzled. For Gov. Pete Wilson chose to start out with proposed cuts that in no little measure will hurt a lot of women and children and schools more than it will pain anyone else.

He proposes that the state’s welfare program, known as Aid to Families With Dependent Children, take a hit of 9%. This program is not a Rolls-Royce, gold-plated state subsidy but a bread-and-butter subsistence program on which 2.2 million women and children depend for nail-edged survival.

Unfortunately, opening the budget debate in this way played into the notion that the state’s money woes (a deficit between $6 billion and $7 billion is projected) can and should be laid at the feet of welfare and education.

In regrettable rhetoric that we hope goes unduplicated, Wilson said that he’s convinced that welfare mothers will be able to survive this hit, though they’ll “have less for a six-pack of beer.” This is a classic political canard--the image of the welfare queen in the brand new Cadillac--that will make many Californians scratch their heads.

Will the former U.S. senator and mayor of San Diego prove nothing more than a more quotable Deukmejian? Or the potentially great governor that California wants and needs?

But look at it another way. Pete Wilson, a most experienced and knowledgeable public official, is right in his assertion that indeed there are relatively few areas of the budget where he has discretion to cut severely. If that is the case--and many fiscal experts believe he has in fact presented a fiscally responsible and clear-headed budget--then there are two things he needs to do.

One is to do a better job than he has so far of explaining his limited options, in order not to arouse the suspicion that he is playing symbolic politics more than managing the state. The second is to be prepared to answer the question of what happens if the economy is worse than predicted and the deficit balloons even more.

On the plus side is Wilson’s insistence on new revenues (dare not call them taxes!), though the Democrats in the Legislature will want to strike some of them from the list and Assembly Republicans won’t like any of them.

Another plus is his long-held preference for programs that emphasize prevention over remediation. This is a useful and logical conceptual framework that could serve his Administration well in the fiscal and policy battles ahead.

But given this direction, Wilson will need to explain why public education and community colleges would be slashed by more than $2 billion. A proper education, which prepares young people for their role in society and for the labor market, is nothing if not a preventive investment.