It's Time to Drop the Curtain on Sacramento's Bad Theater of Budgeting

Sacramento — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has one thing right. Sacramento's annual budget drama is "all part of the Kabuki," he says. "Which means this whole song and dance

"Everyone is beating on their chest and saying, you know, 'We are the stronger ones. We're going to stick to our policies and to our way of doing things,' and so on. And then eventually you will go and resolve some of those differences."

Song and dance. Or, as I've written for years, the "Dance of Death."

One budget scheme after another is ritualistically sacrificed until there's agreement on a single survivor. Too often, the dance turns into a marathon, plodding long into summer.

A legislative strategist once described the "Dance of Death" to me this way: "Everybody dances around the fire. They throw stuff at us. We throw stuff at them. Everybody falls over dead and we start all over."

The guy didn't want to be identified because his boss was a principal dancer. The ex-aide is now a private consultant who still doesn't want to be heard booing the performers.

The public, of course, doesn't have any such constraint.

In Japan, traditional Kabuki drama is revered. In California, the Sacramento version is reviled.

The nonpartisan Field Poll reports that most California voters are booing the governor and the Legislature, apparently for many reasons, but largely for not getting along, compromising and solving problems.

Only 37% of registered voters approve of Schwarzenegger's job performance, a free fall from 65% last September. That's comparable to Gov. Gray Davis' unpopularity at the low point of the energy crisis.

For the Legislature, the jeers are even louder. Only 24% approve of its performance.

Just 32% believe Schwarzenegger is negotiating "in good faith" with the Democratic Legislature. Only 25% think the Legislature is engaged in good-faith bargaining with the Republican governor.

"It is a very clear message by the California people," Schwarzenegger told reporters Tuesday. "They are saying to all of us here at the Capitol: 'Work together.' "

Legislative leaders agree.

"If there's one thing we all need to do, it's humble ourselves. All of us," Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez (D-Los Angeles) said. "We all need to take a step back."

And Senate leader Don Perata (D-Oakland): "This is an institution fighting for its credibility and its life within the three branches of government. The special election does not help that. A quick, on-time budget would."