FROM SACRAMENTO — I hope Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger listened closely from his choice seat. Because President Obama's inaugural address was a stark reminder of what has been missing from political discourse in California: the notion of individual sacrifice for the common good.
Not just share-the-wealth sacrifice. But share-the-pain across the entire economic spectrum -- the pain of sharply reduced public services for the poor, higher taxes for the rich and both afflictions for the middle-class.
It's the only cure for a sick state government before it further infects the failing California economy by virtually shutting down, except for making basic payments to schools and cutting checks for bond holders. Other than that, the state will be forced to pay with IOUs -- including tax refunds -- and halt more construction projects.
State bookkeepers are warning that what Schwarzenegger fears could be "a financial Armageddon" will strike next month unless the governor and the Legislature can finally agree on how to close a projected $42-billion budget deficit covering the current and next fiscal years, ending June 30, 2010.
The Legislature's two Democratic leaders, Assembly Speaker Karen Bass of Los Angeles and Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg of Sacramento, told reporters in a telephone conference call from Washington on Wednesday that they're optimistic California will receive a slice of federal bailout money "in the range of $10 billion."
That's iffy, however, and still not nearly enough to balance the books in Sacramento. "We don't have a choice," Steinberg said. "We have to cut. We have to raise revenues."
But the politicians aren't really selling that message to the public. They don't even seem to be trying. There's little talk of everybody sacrificing -- just those other people: the rich or the welfare beneficiaries. Or maybe both, if you're middle-class.
About the only sacrifice Schwarzenegger has been shouting about is political sacrifice. He routinely exhorts legislators to abandon their ideological corners.
The governor and Democratic leaders have proposed separate budget-balancing plans and rejected the other side's. But neither side has tried to build public support for its proposals -- each probably for the same reason.
Schwarzenegger doesn't want to advertise the fact that after promising during his reelection campaign not to raise taxes, he now concedes a whopping tax increase is indeed necessary.
