Does Davis Have the Chops to Fix the Budget? Do We Have the Will?

For those who missed the news, “the era of high expectations” has officially concluded here in the land of milk and honey. With a projected $34.8-billion budget gap, California has now entered the era of “hard choices.”

This bitter medicine is being spooned out by Gov. Gray Davis, of all people, which is terrifying when you consider the man’s been in the middle of the road so long he’s got two yellow stripes down his back.

So what now?

Reasonable people prescribe a combination of tax hikes and program slashing. But before that bloody war begins, I’d like to offer a word on what this mess says about us.

A $34.8-billion shortfall is a staggering human achievement, right up there with landing a man on the moon.

We have boldly gone where no state before us has gone, spending like the bloke who makes $35,000 a year and charges $6 million in Christmas gifts on his Visa.

How could this have happened?

The planets were perfectly aligned, that’s how. Silicon Valley was manufacturing instant wealth in unprecedented fashion, fattening the state treasury with fool’s gold and feeding a national culture of excess in a world of need.

California led the way in redefining the very standard of human achievement. It wasn’t what you had in your soul, but what you had in your portfolio.

You bought things you didn’t need with money you didn’t necessarily have, and you were far too busy pouring Bombay martinis to realize those undisciplined tramps in Sacramento were even bigger spendthrifts than you.

There is no more dangerous intersection in America than civilian apathy and legislative carte blanche.

And daffy Californians made it all the worse by imposing term limits, which guarantees a succession of rank amateurs to sort through the complexities of governance.

We could not have made life easier for these representatives.

Special interests hand them ungodly piles of cash to run for office, they distort and simplify as many issues as possible during the campaign, and once in office they start dishing out the pork. It’s not in the long-term interests of the state to legislate this way, but who cares? For the past two years, Californians haven’t been paying attention to the fact that the state has been spending gads more than it’s been making. With term limits, most hacks probably figured they’d be out of office before the bill came due.

Whoops.

Thirty-four billion eight hundred million dollars ($34,800,000,000.00).

I think it was cheaper to put a man on the moon.

Only now do we get a serious pitch for tax reform that might take the roller coaster out of annual revenues.

Only now, two months after a reelection paid for by his obsessive-compulsive panhandling, do we get a governor who fesses up to the magnitude of the disaster, even while he continues acting as though he had nothing to do with creating it.

“We must tighten our belts without hardening our hearts,” said the governor.

No new taxes, scream Republicans, who have every right to lay some of the blame on Davis and Democrats, who kept hosing away tax dollars while the economy tanked. But we might not be in this fix if the GOP could have found a gubernatorial candidate who wasn’t such a champion oaf.

Fine. No tax increases, and here’s an offer:

I’ll turn this column space over to the first Republican legislator who quits yapping about taxes long enough to explain how to whack $34.8 billion out of the budget.

But until I hear a decent proposal, let me be the first to utter the one phrase that’s become verboten in American life:

I’m prepared to pay more taxes.

In fact, I’m worn out by a political conversation that never gets beyond that issue.

This is California, where it’s been about boom and bust from the beginning, and the boom will be back. Until then, I don’t mind making a reasonable sacrifice.

The 1990s spoiled everyone, reinforcing the irrational idea that you can have whatever you want without sacrifice.

People bought stock in high-tech companies without a clue what they even made, lived like kings, and are still complaining that their dreams fell short.

Sure, the Legislature spent like fools the past couple of years, and there’s no balancing the budget without taking an ax to some of what it did.

But not every single dollar doled out was a waste. The balancing act should be about deciding, after the boom, who we want to save from the bust. Do we turn our backs on everyone the minute we hit some rough road?

Do we stiff the state’s children just as schools are starting to show some improvement, even if it will cost us all a fortune in the long run?

I don’t know if Gov. Davis has the chops for a job like this -- to redefine the role of government and our obligation to each other. Like I said, he comes into his second term with his own stock in the tank.

And he certainly isn’t inclined toward inspiration or poetry, as Sen. John McCain was on the presidential campaign trail, when he told every audience he was running for office to inspire people to get involved in causes greater than their own self-interest.

But if Davis has one-tenth the zeal for making the “hard choices” as he had for the easy work of fund-raising, and if the rest of us count our blessings instead of our losses, maybe there’s a glimmer of hope.

*

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

latimes.com.