California’s tax revenues are up, the unemployment rate is
inching down, business profits are improving and people are beginning to think
that just maybe the state has finally begun turning that financial corner.
Or, as Gov. Jerry Brown would say, "Damn."
Samuel Johnson once said, "The prospect of hanging
concentrates the mind," and there’s nothing like a good, strong whiff of fiscal
disaster to convince politicians and voters alike that Something Must Be Done.
But let those same folks get a hint that things might not be
as bad as they seemed, and all thoughts of tough choices and shared sacrifice
magically disappear. Call it the
No-One-Cares-About-The-Leaky-Roof-When-The-Sun-Is-Shining rule.
When Brown was elected last November, the state’s
unemployment rate was 12.4 percent and revenue was falling. By the time the
governor put out his budget in January, the California’s budget was $25 billion
in the red, a situation he said was going to require dramatic action to stave
off a financial apocalypse.
"What I propose will be painful – it’s going to take
sacrifice from every sector of California," Brown said in his budget message. "But … it’s time
now to restore California to fiscal solvency and put us on the road to economic
recovery."
For months Brown was the guy you didn’t want to sit next to
on the bus, a street corner preacher warning the Legislature to repent, for
doomsday was at hand.
And it worked, kinda. Brown convinced/bullied/shamed
legislative Democrats into making serious budget cuts that were intensely
unpopular with many of their closest allies in the education, labor and
progressive communities.
And if he couldn’t shake loose the Republican votes needed
to get his revenue measures on a special election ballot, Brown at least forced
them to admit that the state faced serious problems that needed serious – and
long-term — solutions.
But when you’re warning about the dangers of the impending
storm, the last thing you want to see is blue sky peeking through the darkness.
So the May budget revise that found California will take in
an additional $6.6 billion in unexpected tax revenue was a mixed blessing for
Brown. Although the governor warned that the state still needed to chip away at
a "wall of debt," legislators weren’t listening.
To Republicans, the new numbers were more evidence that the
tax and fee extensions Brown has called for really aren’t necessary, while
Democrats already are figuring out how to use
that additional tax money to restore the program cuts they made earlier
this year.
So Brown’s new job is to convince legislators that happy
days aren’t here again and good luck with that.
Although no one in the governor’s office will ever admit it,
Brown was probably one of the happiest people in California when the Supreme
Court ruled Monday that the state had to move some 33,000 inmates out of the
state prison system because of overcrowding.
It’s not that Brown wants to put dangerous felons on the
street, but the ruling can force the state to go along with his plan to move
more prisoners into county lockups and find alternative sentences for low-risk
offenders, saving California’s corrections budget billions in upcoming years.
Brown wants to see the unexpected tax money and any other
unanticipated revenue treated as a windfall and used to pay down the state’s
future obligations. An improving economy provides breathing room, not an excuse
for a party or a return to the "What – Me Worry?" approach to California’s
economic problems.
Politicians, as a breed, want to be loved and you don’t make
many new friends by boosting the taxes they have to pay or slashing the
programs they like.
But when a legislator vows to "well and faithfully discharge
the duties upon which I am about to enter," no one promises it will be easy.
John Wildermuth is a
longtime writer on California politics.