Budget brinkmanship

If it was all about getting the Legislature’s attention, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s plan to cut state workers’ pay to the federal minimum wage succeeded admirably. Democrats responded with shock. Republicans responded with incredulity. But so far, neither side has responded with a budget.

Lawmakers could honestly point out that they and their staffs haven’t been getting any pay since July 1, the long-since-lapsed constitutional deadline for Schwarzenegger to sign into law a budget for the fiscal year currently underway. But really -- who cares? Elected officials turned in their credit union loan documents weeks ago so they could stay on vacation through July and, perhaps, August without any financial pain. They’ll get all their back pay as soon as they get back to work and agree on a spending plan. They hold the strings.

As for Schwarzenegger -- who cares? He’s so rich he doesn’t even take his state salary. Puny matters like paychecks and bills mean little to him. His staff isn’t getting paid either, but they’ll pull through. But while the governor and legislative leaders dicker over the budget (“Reform!” argues the governor; “Taxes!” argue the Democrats; “Cuts!” argue the Republicans), they have called no moratorium on raking in the stuff that really matters to them -- political cash.

State employees who keep schools open or process health payments or do any of the other work that, like it or not, keeps California functioning are not to blame for the Legislature’s failure to do its job or the governor’s inability to focus lawmakers’ attention in a timely fashion. It’s unfair to drop the burden of state officials’ failure onto them.

Except -- the governor’s still-unsigned draft order isn’t just a ploy. The state really does face a crisis. Even if a budget is signed into law a mere month and a half after the constitutional deadline, and even if the state at that point has plenty of cash on hand to pay its bills deep into September, it could still run out of money this fall. To have liquid cash in hand, the state must start selling revenue anticipation notes, which it can’t do -- until it adopts a budget.

This kind of cruel brinkmanship pushes the real budget deadline to whatever August date is the last chance to send voters a tax measure for the November ballot, or the last chance to go to the financial market for the state’s equivalent of a payday loan. The pay of state workers and the tax bills of all Californians become the tokens on the game board, while in Sacramento, the players circle around one another.

Democrats and Republicans now whisper that they just might be ready, sometime next week, to broker an agreement. Hurry up.