Red Ink and Recalcitrance

California plunges another $25 million into the red every day the Legislature fails to pass a budget, the state Finance Department says. Wall Street is increasingly wary of the state’s ability to juggle its massive debt and could cut the state off from credit by reducing its rating to junk-bond status.

Budget cuts already in force are spreading from the poor to the broad middle class, with sharp increases in fees certain at public colleges and universities. Adding to the sense of dread is a likely recall election against Gov. Gray Davis, possibly this fall.

So, with all this pressure, what did the state Senate accomplish Tuesday? Yes, another mindless partisan exercise, with Republicans bringing up scores of budget amendments and the Democratic majority rejecting them, 26 noes to 13 GOP ayes. The GOP intended to demonstrate -- aha! -- that it could indeed overcome a budget shortfall of as much as $38 billion without raising taxes. Democrats snagged the opportunity -- see? -- to show just how extreme a GOP budget would be. So the Republicans block the taxes and the Democrats block the cuts. Congratulations, political parasites. Too bad the people have to suffer for your irresponsible stalemate.

“You picked on the lame and the halt,” yelled Senate Leader John L. Burton (D-San Francisco). Jim Brulte of Rancho Cucamonga, the GOP leader, countered that the state was broke. Both were right. Yes, the GOP would cut the fees paid by polluters even as it yanked funding for worthy social programs. But the holier-than-thou Democrats would protect their labor allies, and Davis is sheltering his ardent supporters in the prison guards union.

The state’s respected independent legislative analyst estimates that the GOP budget plan that was voted down Tuesday would have a $7-billion shortfall in 2004-05 and an $11-billion gap the year after that. Add in $11 billion in overspending in the last fiscal year, and $6 billion the year before that. This long-term debt being used to paper over the Legislature’s failures -- that is the real problem. The billions of dollars worth of fund shifts, borrowing and other fiscal gimmicks sustaining the fiction of a balanced budget would damage the state’s credit rating and its ability to sustain everything from roads to health care for years to come.

Any rational budget will have to slash popular programs. But those cuts can’t do it all. Some temporary tax increases are necessary to avoid piling up tens of billions of dollars in carried-over debt that will be a burden into the next generation. In particular, anti-tax fundamentalists should step aside, keeping their beliefs intact, and let the people who will roll up their sleeves and compromise put an honest budget together.