he ink was barely dry on last week’s column, “Of Scorpions
and Sacramento Spend-ing Caps,” before the air raid sirens went off and shouts of “incoming” were heard here at the Intergalactic Headquarters of Pundits-R-Us. Though some windows were rattled and my roommate, Cody the Wonder Sheltie, had a nap disturbed, I’m happy to report that no martinis were spilled.

The heat-seeking missiles disguised as emails were about evenly split between those who thought I was too tough on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and those who thought I went too easy on him. My purpose was not to be easy or tough but to urge the governor to seize the golden opportunity before him and enact one of his original campaign promises, to “cut up California’s credit card.”

During the budget stalemate, the governor has many times repeated his mantra that “all sides must compromise.” His actions don’t match those words. His latest proposals call for the Democrats to trim the $100 billion-plus budget by only another billion dollars or so while giving them what they really want—the avoidance of an enforceable spending cap. At the same time, Schwarzenegger’s proposals ask the Republicans to abandon a foundation pillar and basic tenet of their party by agreeing to raise taxes—all without getting a constitution-embedded spending cap. Such a “compromise” takes 10 percent from the Democrats and 90 percent from the Republicans. Someone please open the governor’s Funk & Wagnalls to “compromise.”

A True Compromise
A real compromise, taking equal bites out of both sides, would involve what I wrote about last week: a very-difficult-to-break spending cap put in the California Constitution and a truly temporary sales tax increase that included ironclad guarantees to expire automatically in two or three years. The spending cap proposal already exists in the Republican legislation, ACA 19. A sales tax increase containing an unbreakable sunset can’t be that difficult to write.

The governor apparently thinks he is being even-handed in this debate. He is wrong. His public rhetoric has matched his budget proposals—tough on the Republicans while basically giving the Democrats a pass.

Taking the governor at his word, that he truly wants to control spending and cut up the state’s credit card, makes his aversion to making the GOP’s spending cap proposal difficult to understand. Only a spending cap put into the Constitution has the power to prevent future legislatures from overspending, which is exactly as they have done every year of the governor’s term. Any other “solution” is in reality no solution at all. It is instead just a whitewash of the real problem, rather like taking the drink out of an alcoholic’s hand while leaving the 10 cases of whiskey in his basement undisturbed.

Given that fact, the governor’s failure to buy into the Republican spending cap proposal in ACA 19 – or something just like it with the Schwarzenegger name on it if pride of authorship is involved here – suggests he is not serious about controlling spending. True, a constitutionally protected spending cap is to the Democrats and unions as a crucifix is to Dracula. They recoil from it, but certainly no more strongly than the Republicans recoil from a tax increase, even a temporary one.

Look at the Legacy
The solution to the budget impasse is readily available to the governor, but only if he is willing to be as tough with his post-partisan Democrat pals as he has been with the members of his own party. To the eyes of this admittedly outside observer, he has failed that test thus far.

The governor, who still wields the power of the budget pen with signature and line item veto authority, can give the Democrats their tax increase and the Republicans their spending cap. But to do so, he must play rough with the bad company he has fallen in with over the past three years and get them to accept a true compromise.

During his bodybuilding years, the governor was known as the “Austrian Oak.” His behavior in solving the budget impasse will show us if there is any oak left, or if what we have is just another Sacramento sap.