NEWS ANALYSIS : Governor Stumbles on Budget Challenge

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Pete Wilson, who for months has demanded an early budget balanced with cuts rather than tax increases, now appears to have been outfoxed by a Democratic maneuver to offer him most of what he asked for.

Wilson has portrayed the Democratic plan, offered this week, as a “phony” and a “sham,” but in so doing has contradicted himself and misstated some facts. In the process he has confused legislators and sent the public a mixed message of what he stands for.

The Republican governor’s problem may be that he thought he could go on for months chastising the Democratic-controlled Legislature for failing to make progress on his budget proposal. He appeared to believe that the Democrats never would steel themselves to vote for deep cuts in state spending--leaving them paralyzed and adding strength to his proposed ballot measure to shift budget powers from the Legislature to the governor during fiscal crises.

But Democrats in the state Assembly, in what they acknowledge is an opening move in extended negotiations, have offered to give Wilson the power to cut as much as $2 billion from their $60-billion budget if tax revenues fail to match expenditures in the fiscal year that begins July 1.

Presented an opportunity to claim near total victory and press for more, Wilson stumbled. He could have dared the Democrats to make good on their word by passing dozens of bills needed to implement their proposed cuts. Instead he has sought to discredit the proposal and the lawmakers who put it forward.

“It is a case of real false pretenses,” Wilson said. “They’re trying to set up action that will convince people that in fact they’ve dealt with the budget crisis, that they’ve closed the gap, when they haven’t.”

Wilson on Wednesday surrounded himself with two dozen Republican lawmakers in a show of “solidarity” against the Democratic budget-cutting plan. In a gimmick for television cameras, the governor had with him an oversize $60-billion check that he said symbolized the proposal. If it reached his desk, Wilson warned, he would return it for “insufficient funds.”

When reporters, unimpressed by the attempt to equate the Democratic budget with the congressional check-cashing affair, pressed Wilson to address the substance of the plan, he faltered, in some cases missing the mark by a wide margin.

Wilson berated the Assembly Democrats for what he said was their “total unwillingness to make any cuts in welfare.” Democrats have rejected Wilson’s call for cuts of up to 25% in welfare grants. But their plan includes a standby 4.5% cut in payments to poor mothers and their children, to the aged, blind and disabled, and to doctors who care for the poor.

The governor said the Democratic plan isn’t balanced. But his own Department of Finance reported that it was, and had a small reserve.

Wilson chided the Democrats for exempting big programs from budget cuts. Then he said he still thinks public education--by far the state’s biggest program--can be spared.

Wilson blasted the Democrats for proposing cuts of 6% to 18% in state programs. But he already has ordered every department in state government to prepare for cuts as deep as 15%.

He said it was irresponsible for the Democrats to propose giving him the authority to make additional cuts if the state’s financial condition worsens. But he has proposed a similar transfer of powers in his ballot initiative.

What is happening?

“They’re panic-stricken,” Democratic Assemblyman Bruce Bronzan of Fresno said of the governor and his staff. “They clearly are in total disarray in terms of what to do with the budget and how to respond. They’re completely off stride.”

Wilson spokesman Dan Schnur, asked to explain the governor’s actions, simply repeated the same arguments Wilson used at his press conference.

Wilson does make a good point when he says he can’t trust the Democrats to deliver on the bills needed to make the budget work. After all, they have backed away from commitments made a year ago to support a 5% cut in state workers’ salaries and to allow appointment of an independent actuary to set state contributions to the public employee pension system.

But Wilson doesn’t have to trust the Democrats. He can simply threaten to veto the budget unless he gets the legislation needed to make it work, then tell lawmakers what is required. He has made the veto threat, but his finance chief refuses to provide the Legislature with the information it needs to draft the bills.

Wilson says the Democratic plan, even if taken at face value, could lead to 18% cuts in the two university systems, prisons, state parks and other state operations, devastating some programs. But so far, he has offered no plan of his own to close the gap--$2 billion and growing--in the budget he proposed in January.

“Where’s the Republican alternative?” asks Republican Assemblyman Tom McClintock of Thousand Oaks, a frequent Wilson critic. “It’s high time that the governor fulfilled his constitutional responsibility and submitted a balanced budget to the Legislature, and it’s high time the Legislature fulfilled its responsibility and passed one.”

Democratic Assemblyman Steve Peace of La Mesa said Wilson has become “the most confusing human being” he has ever seen in politics. Peace, in comments echoed privately by some Republicans, said Wilson’s behavior gives credence to the theory that the governor, rather than wanting a quick agreement on the budget, actually prefers disarray to further his campaign to pass his initiative as well as to topple the Democratic majority in the November elections.