State Reflects Its People in Living Beyond Its Means

Sacramento

After much study, I’ve decided who’s mainly to blame for the state’s bleeding budget.

The bleeding hearts, you may say. But that label fits many suspects. So let’s be specific.

Democratic legislators? They’re not the chief culprits, although they certainly did overspend during the dot-com boom and now can’t bear to cut back.

Republican lawmakers who, like President Bush, pushed tax cuts that reduced government revenue streams? That’s a form of spending. But they’re hardly the worst offenders.

Same for Gov. Gray Davis, the politician Californians currently love to hate most. Davis signed the spending bills and even advocated many. He failed to staunch the bleeding. But he’s not the principal sinner.

Who’s mainly to blame for a busted budget projected to run roughly $30 billion in the red this fiscal year and next?

The answer is: Us. Most of us anyway.

We citizens demand it all: world-class schools, swifter transportation and a helping hand for the poor -- without reaching into our wallets for higher taxes.

For many of us, this attitude begins in our personal lives.

A recent news story brought it into sharp focus for me. Nearly half of American consumers are making only the minimum payment -- or no payment at all -- on their credit cards. Meanwhile, practically all these people are continuing to charge their purchases and fall deeper into debt, according to the Cambridge Consumer Credit Index.

Another report last week -- the quarterly economic forecast by UCLA’s Anderson School -- also lamented the consumers’ lack of self-control. Assessing how California got into budget trouble, forecast director Edward E. Leamer writes:

“The problem was buying into the New Economy hype and thinking that the Good Fairy of the New Economy had permanently changed the rules.... Businesses were the first to become disenchanted with this fairy tale and cut back spending.... State governments are scheduled for the disenchantment process this year....

“Consumers are still in Never-Never land and spending future income that will never come.”

So if we’re honest with ourselves, this brings it all into perspective. We do have a system of representative government, after all. Politicians are supposed to -- and usually do -- reflect the values of people who elect them.

When the voters themselves are budget-busters, it’s not surprising that the pols they select to represent them in the Capitol follow their lead.

Moreover, the citizens and their representatives share a common trait: They resist making the tough decisions about which spending to chop. Which services to whack.

This was illustrated in a recent poll by the Public Policy Institute of California.

People were read a list of government programs and asked how much should be spent on each -- more, the same or less. Nearly two-thirds wanted to spend more on K-12 schools; only 5% said less. (Davis has proposed cutting $5 billion.) Fewer than 23% supported paring health care, colleges, roads and environmental protection. Only for prisons was there an inclination, by 42%, to spend less.

Just half favored raising taxes to help balance the budget.

“There’s a fundamental disconnect between the willingness to pay for things and the demand for things,” says Bruce Cain, director of the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley.

“That’s one of the great things about being an American,” says Assembly Speaker Herb Wesson (D-Culver City). “You want it all. You expect it all. What that does for people in my position, it makes us stretch ourselves. Be creative.”

Creative budget writing to cover up deficit spending, of course, has led to this current mess. What’s needed now is creative, but honest cutting and taxing. That can start with Republicans laying off the sound-bite rhetoric about woeful waste.

There is waste in government, as in private enterprise, but it’s not nearly as widespread as the myth. Believing that waste created this deficit -- or that eliminating it can stave off higher taxes without cutting services -- is a pipedream.

Where governors and legislative leaders have failed, however, is in not owning up to any waste at all and providing the public with some confidence that they even care about rooting it out.

Merely clean up the waste, people believe, and they can have it all at no extra cost.

The problem is, politicians listen to this fantasy -- in focus groups, on talk radio -- and they tremble. “My colleagues need to toughen up,” says Assemblywoman Jenny Oropeza (D-Long Beach), who heads the budget committee. “The governor needs to toughen up too.”

Our representatives need to think for themselves and not be led by the budget-busters back home.