And Now for Something Entirely Different Amid the Recall: Facts

If Arnold Schwarzenegger is right, you might want to skip this column.

It has some facts and figures in it.

When asked for specifics Wednesday on how he’s going to rescue California, the candidate for governor proclaimed that the public is tired of figures, and just wants someone to rein in the outrageous taxing and spending that has driven this poor state to the brink of disaster.

It was my favorite Hollywood moment since Demi Moore said people wouldn’t notice the tinkering with the film version of “The Scarlet Letter,” because nobody read the book.

My guess is that Arnold’s absolutely right about some people not wanting to be bothered with details, and as I said the other day, he may get elected because of it. But for those of you who aren’t morons, I thought I’d call and get some figures from the Public Policy Institute of California.

It turns out that combined state and local taxation has been fairly constant for 25 years, and we’ve been pretty much in line with the rest of the country, according to research fellow Kim Rueben. Despite some modest dips and rises, we’ve paid close to 15% of our income in taxes since 1970.

I know that doesn’t play well for Arnold and other coup leaders, but like he said, there’s a chance nobody is reading this.

In per capita spending by state and local government, California ranks 10th in the nation. But we’re so affluent, we rank 19th if you measure spending as a percentage of personal income.

And yet on Wednesday, as Arnold prattled on about the horrible misery of joblessness and shattered dreams, you would have thought he was talking about Calcutta.

To be fair, taxation has inched upward in California the last several years, Rueben said.

“But we’re not outrageous spenders when you look at what that money is going into,” she added, saying the bulk of it funds education. As a result, we’ve gone from rock bottom in the nation on spending per pupil to somewhere in the middle.

That sounds like a reasonable investment to me, but political campaigns aren’t about reason or virtue. The whole point is to make you feel like you’re being robbed by incompetents or crooks, and that better times can be had without you having to make a single personal sacrifice.

Why should you have to get rid of one of your oversized, overpriced gas hogs when you can just scream for a repeal of the unconscionable increase in license fees?

Why should you have to give up the sweetest property tax deal in the free world when you can just drop me a line blaming the budget deficit on illegal immigrants?

I get it almost every day by phone, e-mail or old-fashioned letter. Readers beg me to quit sidestepping the obvious, do the honorable thing and tell the shocking truth about what illegal immigrants are costing us.

OK, but it involves some facts and figures.

First of all, I agree that we’ve got too many people here and that it’s destroying the environment and the quality of life. But the economic impact is a more complicated story.

James Smith, senior economist for the Rand Corp., said it’s true that native-born Americans living in California pay $1,200 more per year in taxes than they receive in benefits.

“A significant part of the population is not particularly well-to-do,” Smith said, “so they pay less taxes and receive more in benefits.”

But before you lock and load and ride to the border, there’s a big however.

The overall impact is a plus, Smith said, because immigrants are an essential part of the economy in the U.S., particularly in California. That’s why President Bush and most of Congress cover their eyes when immigrants flood into the U.S. both legally and illegally.

“It’s not a net gain for everybody,” Smith said, because wages are driven down when some people work for next to nothing. “But on the whole, the economic effect is an unambiguous gain.”

It’s hard to break down the impact of legal versus illegal immigrants, Smith said, but the numbers suggest undocumented immigrants are a net gain. That’s partly because they’re likely to be young adults who come here alone to work, they pay sales taxes, and they don’t have children in school at state expense.

So please, I know you’re worked into a lather by recall madness, but let’s try not to indulge the burning desire to be yahoos. And that goes for the lady who called and told me to admit the obvious -- that a guy named Lopez is going to vote for a guy named Bustamante, no matter what.

Yes, we are in a bit of a slump in the Golden State, just like the rest of the nation, partly because employers are chasing cheap labor to the ends of the earth. And some people are truly hurting, although they’re not the ones behind the recall, interestingly enough.

Wall Street is justifiably underwhelmed by the leadership skills of Gov. Davis and the rest of the gang in Sacramento. And sky-high workers’ comp and other problems don’t make for the friendliest business environment, so let’s make the fixes.

But for the sake of perspective, we’re in far better shape than most of the rest of the planet, and our tax bite is comparatively reasonable. Besides that, the sun was shining when I drove to Arnold’s press conference, and kids in $40,000 vehicles whizzed by me with surfboards on the roof.

How long can we endure the suffering?

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Steve Lopez writes Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. Reach him at steve.lopez@latimes.com.