COLUMN LEFT/ MICHAEL TWOMBLY : Votes for Sale: How It’s Done in Sacramento : The state is broke, but legislators angling for campaign contributions keep passing tax breaks. This lobbyist is sick of it.

As the economy continues to slump in California and the campaign season cranks up again, a feeding frenzy of business tax-break bills in the Legislature is causing some real confusion in the ranks.

Just why is the Speaker sponsoring AB 1313, the billion-dollar annual tax break for manufacturers when the rest of his caucus is trying to patch together some kind of deal to close a $9-billion budget deficit? Who is in charge here? Ways and Means Chairman John Vasconcellos, who wrote the Assembly Democratic business report calling for regulatory relief and targeted business stimuli, knows that these tax bills are wreaking havoc with the budget process, all in the name of “stimulating the economy and creating new jobs.”

The Ways and Means Committee passed out an amended version of AB 1313 Tuesday after an unprecendented personal appearance by the Speaker at committee. The bill goes to the Assembly floor for a vote on Friday.

The fact is that tax breaks have done little to stimulate jobs or business, but they sure are good for us lobbyists. Hundreds of well-paid advocates for widget manufacturers, loan-shark lenders, slumlords, beer wholesalers, used-car dealers, gas-station operators and the chicken-guano industry, among others, fatten our own ample retainers by brokering literally millions of dollars of corporate campaign contributions in exchange for enough legislative votes to pass tax-break bills for our clients, all at the expense of the general fund and California’s common good.

I gag whenever I hear the standard speech on the floor that begins: “The state must live within its means, just like any family.” Just how many families have to deal with lobbyists diverting family income? Besides the Speaker’s proposed billion-dollar annual gift to manufacturers, there are dozens of special-interest tax breaks awaiting action by Senate and Assembly, potentially costing the state tens of billions of dollars, all awaiting deals between lobbyists, our wealthy clients and the so-called leadership of the Legislature.

Meanwhile, in case you haven’t noticed, state revenues are a bit on the low side. So low, in fact, that the governor and Legislature have agreed on a $2.6-billion outright theft of local taxes to make up the Proposition 98 school-funding shortfall. City and county governments have been unable to compete successfully with the business lobbyists, corporate tax breaks and promises of campaign contributions.

This lobbyist is sick of the whole game. The halls of the Capitol are a political shopping mall, where policy is for sale to the highest bidder. I guess most of it is legal as long as nobody makes quid pro quo promises on tape. My fellow lobbyists are a smart group, a lot of careful lawyers--only one indictment so far this year.

But we are bankrupting California. Including Proposition 13, budget experts estimate that the cost to California of business and other tax breaks enacted since 1978 comes to $30 billion a year, every year. In other words, if the governor and legislators undid just some of the tax giveaways they (and the voters) have enacted over the years, we could erase our deficit, fully fund our schools and actually perform some basic social services like universal health care and low-cost housing.

But, given the way things are, this is hardly likely. The Speaker took in more than $5 million in campaign contributions last year, and he had no serious opponent. Pete Wilson must raise $20 million for his reelection campaign in 1994 and I’m certain the manufacturers will contribute heavily in return for the governor’s signature on AB 1313. For every billion in revenue lost to the state in tax giveaways, we lobbyists should be able to deliver at least a million in campaign contributions from our clients.

Now, I can see cutting back on cable TV or meals at restaurants when the family revenues are a little too thin. But the family budget metaphor breaks down when the Legislature and governor give away billions in needed state revenue in exchange for their own political advancement. I believe that Democrats and Republicans alike are effectively selling business tax breaks to the highest-bidding lobbyists (and our clients) for promises of future campaign contributions, hiding behind the rhetoric of “stimulating business and creating jobs.”

This lobbyist wants voters to know of the self-serving, shortsighted bankrupting of this once-golden state by my lobbyist colleagues, by their voracious corporate clients and by the ambitious political leadership of both parties.

The selling of public policy must stop.