It’s Time to Drop the Curtain on Sacramento’s Bad Theater of Budgeting

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has one thing right. Sacramento’s annual budget drama is “all part of the Kabuki,” he says. “Which means this whole song and dance....

“Everyone is beating on their chest and saying, you know, ‘We are the stronger ones. We’re going to stick to our policies and to our way of doing things,’ and so on. And then eventually you will go and resolve some of those differences.”

Song and dance. Or, as I’ve written for years, the “Dance of Death.”

One budget scheme after another is ritualistically sacrificed until there’s agreement on a single survivor. Too often, the dance turns into a marathon, plodding long into summer.

A legislative strategist once described the “Dance of Death” to me this way: “Everybody dances around the fire. They throw stuff at us. We throw stuff at them. Everybody falls over dead and we start all over.”

The guy didn’t want to be identified because his boss was a principal dancer. The ex-aide is now a private consultant who still doesn’t want to be heard booing the performers.

The public, of course, doesn’t have any such constraint.

In Japan, traditional Kabuki drama is revered. In California, the Sacramento version is reviled.

The nonpartisan Field Poll reports that most California voters are booing the governor and the Legislature, apparently for many reasons, but largely for not getting along, compromising and solving problems.

Only 37% of registered voters approve of Schwarzenegger’s job performance, a free fall from 65% last September. That’s comparable to Gov. Gray Davis’ unpopularity at the low point of the energy crisis.

For the Legislature, the jeers are even louder. Only 24% approve of its performance.

Just 32% believe Schwarzenegger is negotiating “in good faith” with the Democratic Legislature. Only 25% think the Legislature is engaged in good-faith bargaining with the Republican governor.

“It is a very clear message by the California people,” Schwarzenegger told reporters Tuesday. “They are saying to all of us here at the Capitol: ‘Work together.’ ”

Legislative leaders agree.

“If there’s one thing we all need to do, it’s humble ourselves. All of us,” Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez (D-Los Angeles) said. “We all need to take a step back.”

And Senate leader Don Perata (D-Oakland): “This is an institution fighting for its credibility and its life within the three branches of government. The special election does not help that. A quick, on-time budget would.”

So everybody all together now: What’s keeping them?

Why do they perform this repulsive dance practically every summer, regardless of who leads the Legislature or who’s governor?

In 15 of the last 18 years, the Legislature and governor have failed to enact a state budget by the July 1 start of the new fiscal year. Six times they have gone into August. Private vendors don’t get paid. Schools and local governments can’t plan.

Actually, Democrats recently have been walking around the Capitol with hands up looking for a governor or a Republican leader to accept their surrender.

They gave up fighting for $3 billion Schwarzenegger had promised schools but reneged on to avoid a tax increase. Democrats didn’t want to be the governor’s punching bag for holding up the budget. They and their patron California Teachers Assn. saw more crucial battles looming against Schwarzenegger in the November special election, particularly over an anti-union initiative.

So now the bickering is about how close the Democrats’ $117-billion budget proposal is to Schwarzenegger’s. Democrats say “99.74%” close. The governor contends they’re “far apart.” At dispute is whether to spend one-time revenue for ongoing programs -- and exactly how to define one-time and ongoing anyway.

“We could finish this thing this afternoon,” Perata said.

In less than two hours. There are only a few very small loaves to be split -- such as benefits for the aged poor, disabled shut-ins, welfare moms, and state contributions to teachers’ pensions.

The spontaneous choreography changes daily. But one stumbling block has been Schwarzenegger’s signal that he wanted to negotiate compromises on his three ballot initiatives -- spending cap, legislative redistricting, teacher tenure -- simultaneously with the budget.

The theory was that since Democrats were the most eager for an on-time budget, the governor could use that as leverage to pry from the Legislature a compromise package of “reforms.”

They’d be placed on the ballot as bipartisan alternatives to the controversial initiatives. Negotiators also might toss in term-limit flexibility and public pension pare-backs.

But after reading the Field Poll, Schwarzenegger apparently also became anxious for a pre-July 1 budget.

He backed away from the notion of linking the budget with ballot props in negotiations. And that could speed budget action.

In truth, the worst actor in this annual song and dance is the two-thirds vote requirement for passage of a budget. It makes California out of step with the rest of America. Only two other states require a “super-majority” budget vote.

It allows a stubborn minority to block a budget. And it increases spending by encouraging minority party members to sell their votes for local pork projects.

However this Kabuki plays out, it better be wrapped up by July 1 or there’ll be loud catcalls for the entire cast.

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George Skelton writes Monday and Thursday. Reach him at george.skelton@latimes.com.