Stop the budget madness with some common-sense reforms
I had my toothbrush and sleeping bag at the ready, along with a boarding pass for a flight to Sacramento. My plan was to sack out in the Capitol until I was thrown out or they had a budget agreement, whichever came first.
So imagine my shock and disappointment when I awoke Thursday to find that an early-morning agreement had been reached -- and only 15 weeks late.
Nice going, Sacramento!
To hear Gov. Schwarzenegger tell it, you'd think he'd just won another Mr. Universe contest, or whatever-the-heck dumbbell competition he used to be involved in. And it was a victory of sorts. Yeah, they made some moves I'd quibble with -- schools are having to take more cuts that they can't afford, and air pollution regs are relaxed, for instance -- but the gang-that-couldn't-budget-straight ended up with a tough combination of spending cuts, tax increases and borrowing to close a projected $42-billion budget deficit.
Still, I couldn't help but wonder if this kind of stalemate would have happened under a stronger governor and stronger legislative leaders.
"No, it wouldn't have," said Darry Sragow, a Los Angeles political strategist who worked in Sacramento for 10 years.
Gov. Pete Wilson would have locked people in a room until it was settled, Sragow said. And legislative leaders Willie Brown and Phil Burton would have called on their decades of legislative experience and coalition-building to trade favors and get the job done.
I called Burton, who served six years as Senate president pro tem, to see if he agreed. "This probably could have been settled in five days," he said.
The current Senate pro tem, Darrell Steinberg, is one of the good guys in state government. He's smart, a workaholic and extremely knowledgeable. But he's only been in charge since last summer. Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, who is equally impressive, has only been at the helm since last May.
"Both Karen and Darrell are collaborative and very suited for their jobs," said Sragow. "But they don't have a lot of clout, and so their ability to maneuver is fairly limited."
Why?
Because term limits, by design, give the boot to anyone who knows what they're doing, he said, and, for misguided reasons, "voters love term limits."
Yeah, they love the concept of throwing the bums out after a few years. But do they also love the idea of layoff notices for thousands of state workers? Do they like seeing programs for the elderly threatened because state funds are frozen and do they like the threat of layoffs for their children's teachers, in part because everyone in Sacramento is a relative amateur?
