Posted on 12/14/2003 7:32:57 AM PST by John Jorsett
SACRAMENTO – In the lingo of old Hollywood hype, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's resurrection of his seemingly dead budget plan by cutting a deal with Democrats last week might have been billed as "The Greatest Comeback Since Lazarus!"
But the Democratic leader who spent long hours hammering out an agreement with the Republican governor, sometimes in one-on-one discussions behind closed doors, made a remark that suggests the deal may be the result of more than the governor's political need for an early victory.
"The governor has Democratic core values, too," said Assembly Speaker Herb Wesson, D-Culver City. "I think that helped us a lot."
Although the speaker did not elaborate, he presumably meant that the governor was willing to abandon his proposal for a tight spending limit because he shared Democratic concerns about cutting funding for people with disabilities, child health programs, education and other services.
The measure requiring a balanced budget and a rainy-day reserve fund that the lawmakers agreed to place on the March 2 ballot, along with $15 billion in deficit-reduction bonds, will allow spending to grow with only modest restraints as an improving economy produces more tax revenue.
It's much less than many Republican legislators wanted, and some may join a drive planned by anti-tax groups to place a spending-limit initiative on the November ballot – something the governor, who considered doing it when his budget plan stalled, now thinks is no longer necessary.
Republican legislators, shaped by years of partisan warfare over everything from legislative office space to major budget decisions, fell into line behind the governor and voted for his compromise.
"This bill is better than the current situation," said Senate Minority Leader Jim Brulte, R-Rancho Cucamonga, as he urged his colleagues to vote for the governor's compromise. "Sometimes you don't get to take huge leaps, but you can take solid steps forward."
As he signed the legislation, the governor began and ended his remarks by attributing passage of the measures to bipartisan cooperation, echoing one of his campaign themes about ending gridlock in Sacramento.
"So we accomplished all that not because of my doing, but because of the Republicans and the Democrats coming together," Schwarzenegger said. "As I said already, this is a new day for California, and I'm very happy about that."
But as the governor, who has been in office four weeks, scrambles during the next four weeks to meet a Jan. 10 deadline for proposing a new budget, he may run into an issue that created conflict between his Republican predecessors and GOP legislators: a tax increase.
The past three Republican governors – Ronald Reagan, George Deukmejian and Pete Wilson – all inherited deficits as they came into office, and all three raised taxes. Schwarzenegger wants to close a huge budget gap, estimated at $15 billion next fiscal year, without raising taxes.
Deukmejian, appearing on the verge of tears at a news conference in 1983, met resistance from conservative Republicans as he pushed through a budget plan that closed about $1 billion in "tax loopholes" and included a backup sales-tax increase that was not triggered because the economy recovered.
Wilson closed half of a $14.3 billion budget gap in 1991 with a wide range of tax increases. The combative Wilson told conservative Republicans that they were "(bleep)ing irrelevant" in one famous confrontation, and he orchestrated the ouster of an Assembly GOP leader who opposed his budget plan.
Unlike his GOP predecessors, Schwarzenegger not only inherited a budget shortfall, but he widened the gap by swiftly repealing a $4 billion tripling of the vehicle license fee within less than an hour of being sworn in Nov. 17.
He has promised cities and counties, which already are feeling the pinch, that the state will replace the revenue local government lost when he repealed the tax increase. Democrats have bottled up repayment legislation while waiting to see the governor's proposal for closing the budget gap.
Democratic legislators had demanded that the gap in the current budget be closed with a "balanced" solution of spending cuts and tax increases. Republicans, though a minority, had the votes to block such a plan. To avoid more taxes, they proposed that the state take the unprecedented step of issuing a long-term bond to pay for current operations.
Democrats have said that the governor, who wants to avoid a tax increase while also protecting the school funding that makes up about 40 percent of the general fund, has staked out an unworkable position that would require devastating cuts in the remaining part of the budget.
Schwarzenegger will get no help from the budget deal, which covers the current deficit and makes things more difficult next year because it prohibits any more long-term borrowing for operations.
Schwarzenegger's position on a tax increase, as expressed in some of his post-election comments, seems to boil down to "not now."
Several days after he took office, the governor told Sacramento radio talk show host Tom Sullivan that Californians don't want to be taxed now as the economy is recovering.
"Now is not the time to increase taxes," the governor said. "That's something that maybe we can talk about later on. But right now, what we have to do is cut spending and put out the fiscal recovery bond I have talked about."
Two weeks later, Schwarzenegger told a group of reporters that Californians think the budget problem was caused by overspending, not a lack of taxation. He said voters would feel that "government has betrayed them again" if taxes were raised now.
But the governor said that in a year or two if a poll or survey shows "there is all of a sudden the 80 percent of the people that say no taxes change to 40 percent – and then 60 percent say raise taxes, then you can look at it."
The governor ruled out a tax increase to pay for recent wildfire damage in Southern California, saying the federal government is covering most of the cost. He gave the hypothetical example of security officials deciding that expensive anti-terror screening equipment is needed at California ports.
"Then you can go to the people and say, look, we need security here," he said. "We don't have the money. This is a new idea, here's a new program. I think it's better to increase the taxes."
The governor's comments caused some to observe that he does not seem to share what many Republicans regard as one of their core values – a general dislike of taxes because they drain money from the private sector and increase the size of government.
From a purely pragmatic point of view, a governor who needs a two-thirds vote of the Legislature for budget action might be tempted to start with a base among the majority Democrats – and then look to his fellow Republicans for the remaining handful of votes.
Only an embarrassment to the Republican loyalists who goose stepped into the California forum soon after the recall began.
I still chuckle when I recall the ad hominem approach in response to the truth that indigenous California Conservatives offered regarding Schwarzenegger's core values to these interlopers.
A handful of these seminar replyers come to mind quickly. They had raised this method of counter attack to a high art by the third week of the recall campaign. I can only hope that these individuals will now slink back to the bowels of the RNC pondering what effect their emerging deceit will have on Bush's chances to enjoy conservative support in 2004.
Hmmm... the Dems are starting to get more effective, subtle, and clever with their soundbites. [expletive deleted].
Nah. They're over on the "ya gotta vote for Bush or you'll get Dean!!!!" threads making people cower in fear.
They do seem to be suspiciously absent from any threads like this one though, don't they. And when they do show up, their only statement is 'he's better than Bustamante".
Hb
As you well know I among the many but you misinterpret my criticism. County government is not useless. It is essential to our stability. All things political are local.
My objection is the lack of leadership at the county level. That leadership surrendered your property tax revenue to the state for redistribution at the whim of the urban mobs and capitulated to the demand for cooperation on an increasing greater number of unfunded mandates. Property taxes went bye, bye in the sixties and unfunded mandates began thier rise in the 80's so you probably weren't part of that failed leadership. I'm hoping you'll be part of the resurgence of leadership at the county level. In accordance with the chronic failure of county leadership, I've sincerely suggested you shut down your government until the state again allows you to function....or
You can strap on your back brace and just say no. No more locally unapproved sharing of property tax revenues with the state. Send them a IOU instead of a check. No more effort to enforce unfunded mandates and no more effort to comply with state's dictates. In a word ... disobey your master...organize and precipitate a constitutional crisis. There are so many counties in your same straights that your rebellion will spread like wildfire among the county leaderships and among the productive electorate in all counties that suffers along with you.
May I make a bold suggestion. Coerce your local assemblymen. You have one power that he doesn't. Control of the voting process. Take racketeering to old heights.
Sit down with these fine fellows and have a very private heart to heart. The whole board and the elected county officials in a small room with the asseblymen. No whitnesses Remind these gentlemen that although their campaign may be superb, you count the votes.
Offer an honest election in return for their support of state wide measures to leave tax reveneues in the counties, revenues that never leave. Suggest that their promotion of increasing centralization in Sacramento could lead to real post election confusion in their key precintcs.
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