Budget Critics Short of Ideas

Everyone is teed off in Sacramento. That’s a good thing.

Democrats in the Legislature are recoiling at the prospect of substantial cuts in state health and welfare programs as Gov. Gray Davis attempts to plug a $23.6-billion budget hole. Some are muttering about an increase in state income taxes to restore the funds cut by Davis, even though the GOP would certainly block such a proposal.

Republicans are railing at increased taxes on cigarettes, deferred deductions on business taxes and restoration of the “car tax” on which former Gov. Pete Wilson, a Republican, staked his tax-cutting reputation.

What nobody has is a detailed better idea.

There is no easy way to make up a shortfall that amounts to nearly one-third of the annual state budget and could, over the next few months, keep growing. The state grew fat on capital gains in Silicon Valley’s boom years. Davis is paying the price for putting too much of the money into the expansion of programs rather than one-shot spending like bridge repairs and state park improvements.

Granted, after the brutally lean early 1990s it was impossible to resist new spending on health care and education, both of which had been neglected. But capital gains revenue is too volatile to count on year to year and should probably be handled differently from income tax revenue. The Legislature needs to be part of that decision so a governor does not bear all the political onus of restricting one kind of revenue.

For now, Davis has assembled a stew of loans, new or restored taxes and early payments (such as state income from the tobacco fund), as well as spending cuts. Even in a matter this huge, it amounts to the kind of unexciting some-from-here-and-some-from-there compromise on which Davis has built his career. It’s also hard, on this issue, to disagree with that approach.

Good people can fight about whether child care should suffer more and health spending less. About the exact mix of short-term loans and spending cuts. About whose ox was gored worst. About whether Davis is too hopeful concerning economic recovery, an optimism that could make the loans harder to pay off.

What’s not going to be helpful is the kind of “coulda, woulda, shoulda” second-guessing that is sure to pervade the capital in coming weeks. Those who want to make political gain of the state budget had better come prepared with their own plans, to show dollar by dollar how else it can be done.