Are the Legislators Really Looking Out for Us?

Now it’s Day 13 of the new fiscal year--and still there is no state budget. California’s government is out of cash and paying some of its bills with IOUs. Other obligations will not be met until a spending plan is in place. It looks as if the Legislature, hopelessly deadlocked, has failed again.

But there is another view--a view that is expressed, not surprisingly, by members of the Legislature. Even so, it might be worth considering.

This theory says the reason the state has no budget is not incompetence. Or indifference. It is integrity.

The politicians, the ones who supposedly do not stand for anything, actually do. The conventional wisdom says state lawmakers are out of touch with their constituents. This view says just the opposite--that legislators are deadlocked precisely because so many of them are reflecting the competing beliefs of the 30 million Californians they represent.

Here’s the background: Although both houses of the state Legislature have been controlled by Democrats for two decades, when it comes to the budget, the majority party is reduced to a minority. It takes a two-thirds vote of each house to pass a spending plan or raise taxes, so neither party, acting alone, can adopt its own plan. And any budget that the Legislature passes goes to the Republican governor, who can veto the whole thing or use his “blue pencil” to delete particular appropriations.

Now consider what Gov. Pete Wilson has told this Legislature it must do. Wilson wants to erase a $3-billion-plus deficit and then balance next year’s budget without raising taxes. He wants to do this at a time when the state’s tax revenues are expected to decline and 200,000 more pupils will enroll in the public schools, nearly 5,000 more students will hit the universities, and 300,000 additional poor people will apply for welfare.

Wilson’s instructions to the Legislature are sort of like telling a couple with two children and a combined $40,000 annual income--and no savings account--that they must pay off a $3,000 Visa bill and incur no more debt next year, even as one of the parents is losing a part-time job and a new baby will be joining the family. It’s a daunting task, and one made even more difficult if the couple in question has had marital troubles.

The partisans in Sacramento are fighting over a state budget with thousands of items filling a book three inches thick. It is a document reflecting California’s vision of the future for 5 million children in the public schools, and it is a statement of how much those of us who are working believe we can afford to reach into our pockets to help those who are sick or poor or both.

Democrats, seeking to avoid deep cuts in these government services, flirted briefly with the idea of raising taxes. But Republicans--most of whom ran for election on platforms of less government and lower taxes--stood by that principle, and the Democrats backed off.

And, although Democrats at one time hoped that they could delay for a year repaying part of the deficit, Wilson refused to consider such a plan. Republican lawmakers stood by the governor, insisting that to roll over the deficit simply would delay dealing with the problem for another year, when it could be even worse.

Instead, Wilson offered a plan that would give schools $2 billion less than the $25 billion they had expected to receive. The Republican proposal also envisioned cuts of 11% in health, welfare and higher education programs and reductions of up to 30% in other parts of government.

Democrats balked. Having run for office as supporters of the public schools, they didn’t want to tell 110,000 4-year-olds scheduled for kindergarten in the fall they would have to sit out a year. They didn’t want to triple the fees for community college students, many of whom are struggling to train themselves for entry-level jobs. And after campaigning as defenders of the sick and the needy, they refused to vote to stop providing hospice care to dying AIDS patients or tell adults with tooth decay to let the rot continue until it warranted a trip to a hospital emergency room.

So it turns out that there are meaningful differences between the two parties. Republican lawmakers believe that government must shrink or else it will drive away the very businesses that provide jobs for the workers Democrats say they represent. Democrats have conceded that the state cannot do all as it once did. But they are fighting to preserve services they believe are the hallmark of a decent society and are prudent investments in the future of California’s people.

The budget that’s at stake will call for spending somewhere around $40 billion, or $1,333 for every California resident. This clash of values that is causing the delay is costing each Californian less than a penny a day--in interest on the IOUs.