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Posted on 06/25/2003 11:26:17 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
The high priests of California politics have been thumping their desks this June with all the fervor of a Southern preacher at a summer revival meeting.
The analogy here is purposeful, because the debate in the Capitol as California races toward financial Armageddon sounds increasingly more religious than political.
It's not that the debate is about original sin, eternal life, redemption and salvation. Rather, it's that an increasing number of Democrats and Republicans have embraced their political ideology with the dogmatic zeal of religious missionaries.
This is the reason why this summer's budget crisis -- a fairly regular seasonal affair in Sacramento -- is far more ominous than those that have come before.
In the past, resolution has been dependent upon compromise. This year, it appears to be dependent on the ideological conversion of large numbers of Republicans or Democrats.
The new fiscal year begins on Tuesday; no immersions are yet scheduled in the Capitol fishpond.
Frustration over this phenomenon was evident last week, when two political agnostics in the Assembly -- Democrat Joe Canciamilla and Republican Keith Richman -- unveiled a bipartisan plan to balance the budget and erase the state's daunting $38 billion budget shortfall.
The two acknowledged that their plan was not likely to be favorably received.
The problem: In order to perform the miracle of writing a truly balanced budget, they had to both tax the multitudes and starve government spending.
In the eyes of many, those are both irredeemably evil.
"'No new taxes' is a political orthodoxy, almost like a religious orthodoxy," said Richman, explaining the steadfast view of his GOP colleagues.
"The orthodoxy on my side is that you can never spend too much," explained Canciamilla. "On my side of the aisle, a lot of members believe that the role of government is to answer to every question, respond to every need, provide a service to everyone who can't otherwise afford it and to tax those who can afford it in order to provide for those who can't."
Predictably, each of the lawmakers has been politically crucified for daring to stray from party orthodoxy.
The Canciamilla-Richman plan, although politically moribund, is intellectually instructive for any Darwinists who care to take a look at the origins of California's budget crisis.
For starters, their plan blasphemes the GOP orthodoxy by debunking its deficit-creation theory: that it was all the making of the devil governor, Gray Davis.
The Canciamilla-Richman plan would roll back state spending, on a per-capita, inflation-adjusted basis, to slightly below what it was in the last year of Republican Gov. Pete Wilson's administration.
The state bureaucracy, too, would be pared back so that there would be fewer state employees per 1,000 residents than there were prior to Davis' election.
Next, the Canciamilla-Richman plan tackles the issue of eternal viability. Of the five or six major budget proposals that have been floated, theirs is the only one that not only balances the budget this year but in future years as well.
And what does it take to achieve these miracles?
A temporary, half-cent sales tax that would be dedicated to paying off a $10 billion loan that would be used to pay off the state's accumulated deficit and start fresh in the new budget year.
A host of spending reductions that can factually be described as painful: $1 billion in cuts to health care for the poor, a $700 million pay cut for the blind and disabled who rely on monthly assistance checks, $700 million in additional cuts to public schools, a $500 million one-time cut to cities and counties.
That's what it would take to truly balance the budget. Neither Republicans nor Democrats are willing to go there.
On Tuesday, the Senate went through a budget drill in which majority Democrats put a plan to be voted down because it could not gather a single Republican vote.
Senate President Pro Tem John Burton, D-San Francisco, said that it will take something other than compromise to end the stalemate.
"These are our values," he said. "We believe this is where it's at and this is where we're going to stay."
"You'll test our mettle today," Republican Sen. Jim Battin told Democrats, "and you'll find us very strong."
If you listened closely, you could almost hear 40 politicians utter "Amen."
-- Timm Herdt is chief of The Star's state bureau. His e-mail address is herdt@insidevc.com.
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In the recent past, resolution has been dependent on a small handful of RINOs defecting to the scumbag side. No "compromise" there.
Other than that nit, this is a very good column by Timm Herdt.
That's what it would take to truly balance the budget. Neither Republicans nor Democrats are willing to go there.
A precurser to the 2005 budget battle on the federal level?
Sure - when's the last time you saw a "temporary" tax? Temporary tax relief, maybe, but never temprary taxes...
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