CAPITOL JOURNAL / DANIEL M. WEINTRAUB : Wilson Wrestles for Control of Budget Debate

Behind all the harsh rhetoric, finger-pointing and name-calling surrounding Gov. Pete Wilson’s budget lurks a little-noticed attempt by the Wilson Administration to challenge a basic assumption upon which the state’s spending plan is built.

Republican Wilson is trying to wrest the debating high ground from the Democratic-controlled Legislature by changing the way legislators, the media, and, ultimately, the taxpayers and voters view the process.

The struggle centers on something known as the “workload budget,” a concept invented by Democrats to describe how much money would be needed to provide all existing state services and their anticipated growth, plus inflation, for another year.

In bad economic times, this idea leads directly to the notion of a budget gap--a shortfall between the tax revenues expected to come in and the amount of money needed to balance the workload budget.

The problem, as Wilson sees it, is that once you concede you have a gap, you have to close it. You do that either by raising taxes or by cutting programs--or reducing their anticipated growth. You appear most statesmanlike by seeming to split the difference, as Wilson did last year when he proposed or accepted more than $7 billion in taxes to close a $14-billion-plus chasm.

From a propaganda standpoint, the idea of a workload budget is an effective tool for defenders of the status quo. It starts with the basic assumption that what the state is doing this year it should do next year, and then some. The political burden of proof is on those who want to change the mix of services.

What is Wilson’s alternative? He wants to estimate how much money is coming into the state’s coffers, then decide how best to spend it. In effect, he has made a list, beginning with the programs he values most, including some new ones, and leading down to the things he figures the state can do without. When the money runs out, so do the services. Never mind trying to keep pace with last year.

Using this logic, there is no gap. There are only revenues, priorities, and a list of programs the state can afford and will provide. If someone wants to do something that does not make the list, they must propose a tax increase to pay for it or suggest that some other program be moved off the priority list. The burden of proof shifts to them.

Wilson’s people argue that this is how a family allocates its resources. You sit around the kitchen table, determine how much money you have each month, and then decide what you can afford. Maybe it turns out that you vacation closer to home or not at all, you buy a cheaper car or postpone the purchase, you eat at home more and dine out less. You skip the movies and rent videos instead.

The governor’s list puts public schools and prisons at the top. Health and welfare services for the poor are at the bottom. What doesn’t make the list this year? Dental care for poor adults, welfare aid to pregnant women before they have their babies, an expansion of supportive services to the homebound elderly.

Last year’s budget battle was highlighted by almost daily updates on the size of the gap, which began at about $7 billion in January and reached $14.3 billion by the time the fiscal year ended in June. In the coming year, the state is expected to find itself $5.2 billion short of what is needed to pay off a deficit, rebuild the depleted reserve and keep current services running for another 12 months.

But unlike last year, no reference to this gap appears in Wilson’s budget documents, and neither Wilson nor his finance director, Thomas W. Hayes, mentioned the figure at their Jan. 9 budget briefing until questioned by a reporter.

Wilson also has downplayed his related decision to jettison a budget-control law passed with great fanfare less than two years ago. The so-called “trigger” law was meant to force automatic, across-the-board cuts in the budget whenever revenues were projected to fall short of expenses. But across-the-board cuts in every program assume that every program is worth saving. Wilson would rather target the state’s money, increasing some budgets while eliminating other programs altogether.

Now that Wilson has laid out his strategy, the spotlight shifts to the Democrats who control the Legislature. Look for these lawmakers--led by John Vasconcellos, the Assembly’s longtime budget guru--to try to shift attention back to that $5.2-billion shortfall. If they succeed, they then can add up Wilson’s cuts, and his refusal to pay for projected growth, and more easily argue that the governor is unfairly seeking to force the poor and the infirm to bear the brunt of erasing the shortfall.

It is only fair, they likely will contend, to have business fat cats and the rich pay higher taxes to shoulder their share of that burden.