Budgetary Politics, as Usual

Late last month, right on the deadline for a state budget, reporters at a news conference asked Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger if the tricks and gimmicks he was using weren’t just like those employed by the governor he ousted, Gray Davis. “You really know how to hurt a guy,” he responded.

Schwarzenegger must be in big pain now.

He’s trying to paste a smiley face on the grim $105.3-billion deal he finally reached Monday with chief lawmakers. It is jammed with costly compromises. For the Republicans, no tax or even user-fee increases. For the Democrats, restoration of almost every proposed cut in social services, higher education and state labor costs.

The only losers, aside from California’s future, are cities, counties and local schools, which were fleeced in return for promises of future protection.

Last month, Schwarzenegger could still boast of a money-saving deal on workers’ compensation insurance and of revenue agreements with casino-owning Indian tribes. Today, there’s talk that workers’ comp premiums might not go down, and dissident tribal leaders promise a fight for pet ballot proposals that the governor thought he’d killed. Plans to overhaul the state prison system and extract concessions from the overpaid guards turned out so badly that a federal judge is threatening a takeover.

Schwarzenegger goes on the record a lot, still promising like crazy. A few months ago, he said that “in order for the people to win, politics as usual has to die.” Not long afterward, he declared victory: “Business as usual, politics as usual, is out the window.”

Apparently it was just a first-floor window. Politics as usual stood up, limping, and headed off for the final budget negotiations.

The revenge scenario that Schwarzenegger is said to be planning, including a new push for a part-time Legislature, won’t persuade any of his legislative sparring partners to play nicer.

All of the bad stuff doesn’t add up to disaster, yet. Revenue predictions are rising a little.

No one expected everything to be fixed in Schwarzenegger’s first budget. The few remaining legislative moderates praised his negotiating style. An expected full-bore effort to achieve some fundamental government reforms at the ballot box could succeed.

Schwarzenegger’s credibility might have been greater if he had just said:

“This budget stinks. It puts California billions deeper in the hole, on top of about $35 billion already billed to our children. But I learned plenty. The next budget will be closer to what I promised when I took office. Thank you, Californians, for cutting me so much slack. You’re all fantastic!”