Let’s Have a Budget Debate on Matters That Matter Most

Republican Gov. Pete Wilson’s continuing joust with Democratic leaders over the state budget is so riddled with political cliches that few folks are listening. Nevertheless it is possible to imagine a budget debate--on education, for instance--that honestly tackles what matters to Californians.

Format is a problem. All the big budget issues have been left to five political leaders--Wilson and the two top GOP and Democratic leaders of the Legislature--in private negotiating sessions still underway three weeks after the new fiscal year began. But members of the so-called Big Five make the situation worse by coming to the table burdened by devotion to narrow political constituencies and traditional partisan stances.

The real concern of most California citizens is a quality education for their children, something that has been lost amid the wrangling as the Big Five leaders play political poker. Wilson throws in his tax-cut chip and declares in effect, “Top that if you can!” Democrats come back with more money for welfare and aid to legal immigrants, raising the specter of the old tax-and-spend days.

The demand Monday by Assembly Speaker Cruz Bustamante (D-Fresno) for state-funded aid for legal immigrants was emotional and moving, and perhaps driven by his own political demands. We support his proposal to continue aid to legal immigrants, people who have worked and paid taxes. But to make that issue a line-in-the-sand priority slights a host of other critical state problems.

At least Senate President Pro Tem Bill Lockyer (D-Hayward) was somewhat on track in raising a litany of education needs that ought to be dealt with before taxes are cut. But his statement was full of political shorthand incomprehensible to the average parent.

If Democrats really want to provide an effective counter to Wilson’s tax-cut demand, they will shed their old political baggage and produce a visionary plan for public education in California.

The plan would go beyond numbers. It would vow that California will recapture its onetime excellence in education in the next 10 years. It would assure parents that money will be spent the way it was intended, as efficiently as possible. It would promise that deadwood in school administrations and the teacher corps will be weeded out so children will no longer be cheated by laziness or incompetence. The plan would give parents a role in structuring the schools and educating their children.

Wilson tells parents his tax cut will buy six months of Pampers. Somebody should also tell them how much algebra or history their children could learn if class sizes were reduced in high school as well as in the lower grades.

Talk about the 12 extra school days that $600 million of the tax cut would buy statewide. Promise that children will graduate from high school literate and be welcomed into an affordable unit of the state’s higher education system. Assure parents that high school graduates can and will qualify for decent jobs. Tell them their kids will have textbooks, that they will learn computer skills and that they will have safe classrooms conducive to intellectual exploration.

The governor says it’s an “exercise in greed” to oppose his tax-cut proposal. That’s political bully talk. Independent-minded legislators should demonstrate a commitment now to real excellence in education, and that would mean stepping on the toes of some powerful educational constituencies like the unions. But it could pay priceless dividends to a bright California in the future.