Student Governor Needs to Buckle Down and Work

It’s time again to grade the governor. Wednesday will mark one year in office for Arnold Schwarzenegger -- one full year of learning on the job. How’s he progressing?

There is only one fair way to go about this: Split the grade in two.

* One grade for politics. Give him a solid A.

* A second grade for policy. He gets a generous C.

A tougher grader would have given the guy a D in policy -- or categorize it as substance, all that serious stuff a governor is supposed to do to solve state problems.

The one problem that overrides all others -- the destructive budget deficit that Schwarzenegger promised to fix -- still perplexes the governor because he refuses to look at it realistically.

If there is a “girlie man” in Sacramento, it’s Schwarzenegger for not having the courage to raise taxes or significantly cut spending -- or, more wisely, negotiate a combination of both.

Instead, he has borrowed billions, much of it from the next generation, and fallen into his predecessor’s pattern of punting: using gimmicks and cooking numbers to fictitiously “balance” the state books.

In fact, that rolling deficit is about the same now as when Schwarzenegger was sworn into office. He and the Legislature have just shoved it into the future, borrowing to pay current expenses.

Last fall, the state was projected to end this fiscal year

$8 billion in debt. In May, respected legislative analyst Elizabeth G. Hill forecast a $6-billion hole for the next year and $8 billion for the following year. Next week, she’s expected to report that the situation has worsened.

Schwarzenegger has acknowledged that spending is growing faster than revenue.

And let’s be honest: This independent-study student has been goofing off a bit.

You wouldn’t call all of it truancy, because he has had some legitimate excuses. But the governor -- who admits being unable to focus on more than one objective at a time -- has traveled extensively to Maui, Sun Valley, Las Vegas, Ohio, Israel, Jordan, Austria, Germany and now Japan.

He should be cracking the budget books more in Sacramento.

A “trade mission” to Japan might be fine in fat times, but it seems frivolous as the state wallows in debt -- even if special interests did kick in to help pay for the junket. (If it’s really worthwhile, the state ought to pay for the whole thing, rather than hitting up the business lobby.)

Was its purpose to promote California or the celebrity governor -- to keep the Schwarzenegger brand on billboards and screens in Japan? Clearly, both.

Schwarzenegger’s charm and showmanship still infatuate Californians.

The governor conceded to reporters in Tokyo that one of his most valuable tools is hype -- “making it sound basically even better than it is. Because that’s what marketing is all about. Go out there ... [and make] an 8 ... sound like a 10.”

So he gets a B for baloney -- and high grades from voters.

A Times poll of voters last month found that 66% approved of how he was handling his job. If anything, based on Times surveys, the governor’s popularity has increased since last winter.

What’s more, under Gov. Schwarzenegger, Californians are feeling better about their state. Last month, 42% felt it was headed in the right direction, compared with only 17% in August 2003, as angry voters were revving up to recall Gov. Gray Davis.

And the governor’s popularity has resulted in big victories at the ballot box.

First, in March, there was the overwhelming acceptance -- after initial public skepticism -- of his $15-billion budget bailout bond. Voters also bought his constitutional amendment that required the politicians, he asserted, “to tear up the credit cards and throw them away.” We’re still waiting.

Schwarzenegger’s triumph pressured legislators into compromising -- most notably on workers’ compensation reform, although the “billions and billions” in savings he promised was another example of hype.

On Nov. 2, voters sided with the governor on 11 of 14 ballot props that he took a stand on, including all his top priorities.

Detractors have rapped Schwarzenegger for not muscling Democrats out of the Legislature, especially after declaring that Nov. 2 would be their “judgment day.” But it also could be argued that he protected Republicans from losing seats -- for the first time during a presidential election in 20 years.

Despite all the bluster, however, Schwarzenegger does not have an impressive record of accomplishment in the Capitol. It’s mediocre at best.

Cutting the car tax and repealing driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants were easy. And the former added $4 billion to the deficit.

Negotiating budget deals with the school lobby, universities and local governments got him through his first year, but delayed tough tax-and-spend decisions. His promised “audit of the books” never occurred. His ballyhooed routing out of waste, fraud and abuse has been a bust. An ambitious government reorganization was poorly conceived.

Business does have a friend in Schwarzenegger. (Example: He vetoed a minimum wage increase.) And so do environmentalists. (He created a Sierra conservancy.)

But overall for his freshman year -- combining politics and policy -- Schwarzenegger has earned no better than a B-minus.

The action hero who achieved phenomenal success in his other careers has been an underachiever as governor.