Camera-Ready Budget Pitch

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has proved a quick study, realizing that in politics it’s not what you say but how you say it, particularly when you’re talking complex California finances just as television crews are scrambling to chronicle Britney Spears’ lightning trip from wedding chapel to annulment.

Start with the oversized, color-coded “Why Recovery Bond Is Critical” chart that Schwarzenegger used to illustrate his fat, photogenically frustrating 317-page budget. The Hollywood-trained governor knew that visual thinking was key to getting across the point that the proposed budget would sink unless voters also approved a record debt offering, set for the March ballot. He even joked with photographers and reporters, asking: “Did you all get a good shot of me holding the graph?”

Schwarzenegger’s scriptwriters don’t want voters to hold the new governor responsible for the pain to be felt as California pulls itself out of its fiscal mire. So the state’s $22 billion in red ink becomes “inherited debt,” leaving Democrats to wonder if the governor will claim any indebtedness incurred in the 2005-06 budget cycle.

Schwarzenegger’s team isn’t doing anything new. The Davis administration camouflaged its plan to borrow billions of dollars as “fiscal recovery bonds.” Schwarzenegger cleared the way for his proposed $15 billion in borrowing with the “Economic Recovery Bond Act.” In Schwarzenegger’s budget, cuts become “General Fund solutions.” State employees know what he means when he says, “The greatest opportunity for improving [fiscal] accountability is through reforming the state’s retirement programs.”

The one thing flowery language won’t hide is that California is in deep trouble.

The major credit-rating services have downgraded the state’s general obligation bonds to triple-B, a risky rating and the lowest mark for all the states. California is one precarious step from junk-bond status -- which could be called “attractively priced investment opportunities for investors who missed out on buying bridge shares in the desert.”

Schwarzenegger’s first budget doesn’t always mince words. Consider this line: “Just as a firm facing bankruptcy needs a ‘work-out’ plan, the state of California needs a responsible, measured approach to return it to fiscal health.”

The real trick is not crafting clever terminology but getting a sound, workable agreement between legislators and the administration on that “responsible, measured approach.”