Budget stalemate won’t be solved soon

By Dan Walters

Remember the state budget?

The one that the state constitution says should have been done by June 15 for a fiscal year that began on July 1?

Nearly a month later, not only does the state not have a new budget in place, but there are no indications it will emerge from the Capitol anytime soon.

"It will be another few weeks to get a budget done," Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger told a group of Los Angeles business leaders Monday, which proves again that Schwarzenegger is an incurable optimist.

"Another few months" might be closer to the mark.

The budget has a deficit of around $20 billion, and growing daily, and closing it would be a weighty chore even were the Capitol a functional institution. Which services should be cut? Should new revenue be raised? If so, who should shoulder the burden?

The Capitol, however, is a structurally dysfunctional institution and its chronic malaise is compounded by the political conditions of the moment.

Schwarzenegger is an unpopular lame duck governor who says he won't sign a budget without budgetary and pension reforms that Democrats despise. Democrats, sensitive to public employee unions, are insisting on new taxes that he and Republican legislators reject out of hand. And, of course, it's an election year.

Within a few weeks, the state will run out of cash to pay its bills and could resort to IOUs. And Schwarzenegger contends that state employees should receive only minimum wage without a new budget in place.

As the stalemate's fallout widens, the state's media will focus on it more intensely; even notoriously detached Southern California television stations will set aside their obsession with crime and celebrity scandal to tell viewers what's not happening.

And then there's Proposition 25, a November ballot measure that would change the legislative vote requirement for budgets from two-thirds to a simple majority.

Democrats and their union allies are pushing the measure while Republicans, who would lose their leverage on the budget, and business groups are opposed.

Schwarzenegger weighed in Monday, saying, "Even doing the budget, I even don't believe in doing the budget by a simple majority, because if you do a budget by simple majority, again, there is one party that will make all the decisions."

Both sides of the Proposition 25 battle may have a vested interest in having this year's budget stalemate continue indefinitely, thus driving legislators' abysmal popularity even lower.

The Proposition 25 campaign could urge voters to punish legislators by emphasizing the measure's provision that would strip them of their pay and living expenses when the budget is late. Meanwhile, the anti-Proposition 25 campaign could contend that it's a power grab by the same politicians who are not doing their jobs now.

Dan Walters is a columnist of Sacramento Bee. He can be reached at dwalters@sacbee.com. For back columns, visit www.sacbee.com/walters.