Pass a Budget and Move On

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state legislative leaders should stop dithering over their $103-billion budget and just pass it.

Schwarzenegger had it right when he declared that, above all, the people wanted a state budget done on time. Voters are turned off by the political games being played by Democrats and Republicans, each side trying to make the other look bad. Thus their confidence in government -- which was on the rise with Schwarzenegger’s election -- is sinking again.

There’s no denying that the public is disappointed because Schwarzenegger has backed off from his promises to wipe away the state’s massive debt, destroy the built-in deficit in the budget and “blow up the boxes” with a sweeping governmental reorganization. None of that was particularly realistic, especially during his first year in office. In fact, the governor has looked less like an action hero lately than a slave to political expediency, in the mold of former Gov. Gray Davis.

First he gave in to Democratic demands on health spending and then, responding to cries from his own GOP, he dumped a sound program of “polluter pays” environmental fees. He also surrendered to the prison guards union on its shameless pay raises and work rules.

What’s left is a budget that will only get worse with more tinkering.

The last remaining major dispute is over state aid to local government. Cities and counties want an ironclad agreement that the state will not rob them of local property tax revenues again, as it did in the early 1990s and again in recent years.

They deserve some protection, but not what they’re seeking: a four-fifths vote of the Legislature to approve future diversion of money to Sacramento. That would make it harder to take money from local governments during fiscal emergencies than from public schools, healthcare for the poor and every other state program. The four-fifths margin would set a terrible precedent. The two-thirds vote needed to pass any spending bill or increase any tax is crippling enough.

The cities and counties have threatened to break off negotiating a compromise with Democratic leaders in the Legislature and to put all their effort into passing Proposition 65, a November ballot measure that would lock their current funding into the state Constitution. But they agree that their measure stands little chance of passage.

Legislative leaders should call their bluff. Get municipalities to settle for the compromise on the table -- only $1 billion taken at a time, to be paid back with interest and needing a two-thirds vote for approval.

Pass this mediocre budget and get on with the much harder job of reforming state government.