Is This Any Way to Do a Budget? : There must be a better way to survive the recession

The grueling six-month budget duel that all but demoralized California is over. Thank goodness for that. But it may be that the worst is not behind us. If so, what can we learn from this ordeal?

One need is to insist on a greater level of civility and mutual respect in our political process. California is not, as it were, Yugoslavia--we are not after all in a state of civil war. Therefore, Gov. Pete Wilson should help lead and elevate the tone. So far he has not been seen to be crowing, overtly at least, about his defeat of the Democratic-controlled Legislature. That’s good. What’s needed now is more statesmanship and less partisanship--not fault-finding or finger-pointing but a modicum of mature discourse as California prepares to batten down the hatches for even more of the hurricane-like recession. So, Joe, who’s to blame: the governor or the Democratic leadership? Forget the blame game, forget another round of recriminations. Let’s just do the budget job better--more intelligently, less vilely--the next time. Possible?

THE BUDGET: Wilson has won an undeniable political victory. He has beaten the Democratic-controlled Legislature at the budget game. And that victory comes at a time of historic weakness for the Legislative branch--its ego bruised and its self-confidence battered by voter passage of term limits and the state high court’s upholding of a reapportionment plan that makes more legislative districts competitive than ever before. Without any new general taxes, the budget is theoretically balanced--you can tell that because so many people are complaining as if the governor were Dr. Frankenstein’s blood brother. But in truth the whole kit and caboodle could become unglued if the Wilson Administration’s arguably rosy revenue projections for 1993 turn out to be the result of some odd substance his forecasters not only smoked but inhaled. If those assumptions do turn out to be misconceived, then the current budget may lose all relevance and the whole process may have to be reopened. If that happens, will everyone please consider behaving just a bit better than tantrum chess king Bobby Fischer?

THE COST OF CRISIS: Collectively, California has paid a high price for the budget psychodrama. First there is the cost of issuing all those IOUs--and of higher interest-rates as the state’s bond rating declined. But then there is the embarrassment of hearing the rest of America laugh out loud at California. That hurts. The crisis unnerved the state’s sense of self-confidence and pride. The psychological cost may may be impossible to tally, but California doesn’t seem to feel so good about itself any more.

California cannot afford to become further divided as the going gets even tougher, as it very well might. People will complain about Wilson’s Draconian cuts, but with a Draconian economy, what was the alternative? No one was going to come out of it very well, no matter which slate of cuts was adopted. And in a year that was to hold not only a recession but an election, who sincerely wanted more taxes?

What’s certain is that whatever next year brings, we’re all in the same soup. Why not try to work together like good California patriots--the state first, politics second? For instance, why not make the principal players in the state education system participants in the governor’s process--invited there by Gov. Wilson and fully involved in the process.

Is it all too utopian to suggest that everyone ought to be on the same side? Oh, sure. But someone--let it be us--needs to suggest it anyway.