Lessons of the Budget Laboratory

Soon we will know whether Gov. Pete Wilson and the Legislature at last have mastered Sacramento’s version of a Skinner box.

Psychologist B.F. Skinner, a pioneer in behavior modification, placed animals in boxes and conditioned them to operate in ways to their advantage. If the creatures pressed a certain lever, they would be rewarded with food; if they didn’t, they could be punished with shock.

In Sacramento, the state Capitol is a Skinner box for politicians, who in recent years have failed to press the right budget levers and have been shocked by strong public rebuke.

The hardest jolts have been felt by Wilson.

The public’s rating of his job performance took its first dip two years ago when he and the Legislature raised taxes by a record $7.6 billion as part of a budget settlement that lagged 17 days past the constitutional deadline. Then the governor’s job rating tumbled last summer when he and lawmakers deadlocked for 63 days past the budget deadline while the state of California paid its bills with embarrassing scrip.

Voters also slapped legislators with term limits 2 1/2 years ago after they and then-Gov. George Deukmejian were a month late in enacting a budget.

What these gridlocks tell voters is that the politicians would rather bicker than bargain, have disdain for deadlines and lack leadership. Unlike common people, they can’t get their work done on time. Stalemate of the process often is more harmful politically than the specifics of any agreement because it illustrates that government isn’t working.

And because the governor has more power and responsibility than any other individual in the Capitol--the Legislature is an institution of 120 individuals--it is the governor who is the easiest to blame and punish.

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Now, Wilson and the Legislature have only 24 days to enact another painful budget before the next fiscal year begins on July 1.

“If they’re still posturing on June 30--still looking for public forums to generate support for their side--it’s going to be a sense of ‘a plague on all your houses,’ ” predicts veteran California pollster Mervin Field.

There are signs that the governor and legislative leaders may know which levers to press this time.

One reason is that Wilson also is in a box of a different kind. He has the lowest job rating of any governor in 30-plus years of Field surveys; only 15% of the people rate his performance as good or excellent. His ratings are even worse on the specific questions of “managing the state’s financial affairs” and “working with the Legislature to pass needed legislation.” And he badly trails his potential opponents in 1994 reelection matchups.

So the governor is weak politically and in a corner where he must compromise. And he is beginning to.

An important concession was his agreement last week to extend a temporary half-cent sales tax increase an extra six months and give all the revenues to local law enforcement. This came after the Field Poll showed him with only a 14% job rating on crime protection. One sheriff who had lobbied Wilson for more funds told me: “If there was a straw vote in the Sheriffs Assn. on whether to support him for reelection, he’d lose.”

Wilson also earlier compromised by embracing deficit financing, agreeing to stretch out repayment of the state’s debt over 18 months--to the end of 1994. That is when a new gubernatorial term begins, either for himself or his successor. And he emphatically has told advisers that he wants state spending to be in the black at that point.

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The governor will have to compromise more to produce a timely budget. The $2.6 billion in property tax revenue he wants to take from local government and give to schools may have to be cut in half or phased in over two years. Wilson’s business allies adamantly oppose him on that issue and so do local governments, who have mounted a strong grass-roots lobbying campaign aimed at legislators.

Wilson also may have to agree to a longer extension of the half-cent sales tax. One factor pushing for a quick compromise is that the temporary tax automatically will expire on June 30 without new legislation.

At the same time, Assembly Speaker Willie Brown may have to give up the business-backed bill he is sponsoring to exempt manufacturing equipment from the sales tax. The Speaker already has signaled that he will not try to block Wilson’s effort to eliminate the renters’ tax credit.

The sagest advice of last week was offered by Brown to fellow Democrats at a private caucus: “Don’t draw any lines in the sand because they’re going to be erased.”