You can’t have a game when only one team wants to play.
Since the Republicans don’t want to play in the effort to build a realistic state budget, Gov. Jerry Brown Tuesday called off the game.
That shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone who was paying attention Friday evening when Republicans released their list of requests/demands for what they needed before they would give Gov. Jerry Brown the votes to put his tax extension plan on the June ballot.
It was a Christmas list that included every proposal California Republicans have dreamed of for the past decade, along with changes they wanted made to the list of painful spending cuts Brown had browbeaten his unhappy fellow Democrats into passing.
“Each and every Republican legislator I’ve spoken to believes that voters should not have this right to vote (on the tax extension) unless I agree to an every changing list of collateral demands,” Brown said in an extremely brusque – and somewhat whiny — statement.
In a March 25 letter to Bob Dutton, the GOP Senate leader, Brown complained that Republicans had brought in a list of 53 proposals, “many of which are new and have no relationship whatsoever to the budget.”
There never was a chance that Brown or any other Democrat – or most economists – would agree to a permanent hard spending cap, especially given the trouble states like Colorado have had with that type of drastic budget restriction. And Republicans knew they weren’t going to convince Democrats to eliminate seniority for teachers, make it easier for developers to shortcut environmental rules and slash the length of the proposed tax extension from five years to 18 months, essentially torpedoing Brown’s effort for something other than another one-year budget semi-solution.
And oh, by the way, the GOP leaders also want the governor to add back the money budgeted for county fairs and make sure that next year’s presidential primary isn’t moved back to June.
A bipartisan budget agreement isn’t going to happen, and Republicans knew it – and were likely even counting on it. Reading that GOP wish list, you get the distinct feeling that if Brown had magically agreed to everything suggested, the Republican answer would have been, “Well, of course there are a few more things we’d like to add.”
If the Republicans have a budget solution that involves something other than chopping another $14 billion or so out of so far unidentified state programs, firing masses of government workers and eliminating business regulations and environmental rules, they haven’t revealed it.
Instead, they’re gleeful that the Democrats alone will have to make the hard decisions needed to keep the state solvent and take the heat that comes with it.
“This is what is going to happen,” writes Steve Frank, a popular GOP blogger. “In June, Guv Brown is going to cut 15 days of government education – from 185 to 170. My bet is that not a single Republican will vote for this. It will be the Democrats, again, who will harm the children of this state.
“Then on July 1, Brown will release north of 10,000 criminals back on the street – at the same time cities and counties are cutting back on public safety officers.”
That’s not a happy prospect, but without the money the governor hoped to get from a voter-approved tax extension, a budget disaster is a real possibility. If Brown follows through on his promise to produce an all-cuts budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1 – and that’s a mighty big if – those are the kind of ugly program cuts that will be on the table. And no one in California is going to be pleased with the upheaval that will come from legislators putting together a skeletal budget that involves picking the least bad choices.
Of course, making hard decisions and dealing with the consequences is what politicians are paid to do. And, come election time, California voters will remember who’s been doing what’s needed to earn those salaries.
John Wildermuth is a longtime writer on California politics.