ANAHEIM — Arnold Schwarzenegger has made some trippy movies,
but they can’t compare with the bizarre drama he’s now starring in.
Since being elected governor in the October 2003 recall of
incompetent and irresponsible Gray Davis, Schwarzenegger has
pursued a reform agenda that has even liberal policy wonks like
Time’s Joe Klein cooing.
Yet thanks to a California media that seem unable or unwilling
to detail the extent of Democrats’ dysfunction, Schwarzenegger
isn’t the hero of “The Battle to Save the Golden State.” If you ask
many of the state’s most influential opinion-shapers, he’s the
villain.
This is beyond perverse, and the result could be California’s
ruin.
Schwarzenegger’s post-Davis clean-up first required he end the
state’s practice of spending $1 billion a month more than it took
in, the result of a reckless five-year spree by the Democratic
Legislature and the compliant Davis, who acted as if the dotcom
tax-revenue gravy train of the late 1990s was a permanent fact of
life. The next priority was to shore up the state’s business
climate, which was stuck with a workers’ compensation system that
amounted to massive legally sanctioned fraud.
A year and a half later, the gap between revenue and spending
persists, but it’s smaller, and Schwarzenegger has stopped the
Legislature’s insane attempts to make things worse. Meanwhile, his
workers’ comp reforms — grudgingly approved by lawmakers to avoid
an initiative fight the governor would have won — have helped the
economy considerably and boosted state revenue.
But huge problems remain. Past initiatives have locked in
spending hikes in programs that even a big economic boom wouldn’t
be able to pay for, the state’s public schools have gotten
incrementally worse for 40 years, and absurdly generous pensions
and retirement health benefits for public employees make California
seem more like a Western European “social democracy” than the Land
of Reagan.
That something has gone haywire isn’t much in dispute. Assembly
Speaker Fabian Nunez and Attorney General Bill Lockyer — the
state’s most powerful Democrats — have said California must make
basic changes in its finances and beyond. Lockyer even admitted to
voting for Schwarzenegger in the recall election.
But what have they and other Democratic leaders done besides
talking about reform? Nothing. Schwarzenegger, conservative hero
state Sen. Tom McClintock, and a handful of maverick centrists have
put forward detailed plans on how California should get its fiscal
house in order. Not just Schwarzenegger but think tanks and
editorial boards have come forward with elaborate plans to fix
schools and overhaul pensions.
Yet beyond cliches about working together to solve problems,
Nunez, Lockyer and company have contributed exactly zero to the
policy debate. Against this backdrop, it wasn’t just a power play
when Schwarzenegger announced in January that he was going to push
for initiatives to cap state spending, institute merit pay for
teachers, take redistricting power away from the Legislature, and
shift future new state employees to 401(k)s instead of
defined-benefit pensions; it was the only way he would ever get
anything done.
WHAT WAS THE CALIFORNIA left’s response to Arnold’s audacity?
Mendacity. For four months, the state’s wealthy public employee
unions have mounted a ferocious, multimillion-dollar, multilevel
attack on “radical right-winger” Schwarzenegger. Teachers
dishonestly claimed he was cutting the education budget. Cops
dishonestly claimed he longed to wipe out the pensions of the
widows of officers killed on the job. Nurses even dishonestly
claimed his opposition to their agenda showed he was sexist. All
his union critics said California’s only problem was that its taxes
weren’t high enough.
Of course this criticism should have been reported by the media.
But in a just, intellectually honest world, the media would also
have noted such basic facts as that being for a balanced budget
isn’t normally seen as “radical.” Or that over the last four full
fiscal years, while state revenue has surged by 25 percent,
spending has gone up 40 percent. Or that a February report by a
government-watchdog agency showed that the state’s school districts
had $17 billion in unfunded liabilities for retiree health care and
no way to cover the cost — which means that California’s struggle
to pay for public employees’ lavish benefits is, oh, about twice as
bad as Schwarzenegger said.
Or, most obviously, that California’s leading Democrats’ refusal
to offer any counterproposals of their own shows that they’re
all for this horrific status quo.
Instead, many reporters on the state government beat have bought
the union talking point that Schwarzenegger’s heavy fund-raising
among corporate donors is the biggest story of the year, not the
state’s still-raging fiscal problems. Even more damaging, the
governor is becoming a pinata for much of California’s pundit
class. Some big papers have stood by him, including the editorial
pages of the San Diego Union-Tribune, the Los Angeles
Daily News, and the Orange County Register (where I work). But
for the most part, the norm has been a whiny “Can’t we all get
along” tack that faults the governor for his aggressive approach
and ignores the implacability of his union foes and the inertia of
state Democrats.
The Los Angeles Times’ editorial page rapped
Schwarzenegger’s embrace of initiatives as “micromanaging by
majority vote” and called on him to work with Democratic lawmakers
to tackle the state’s budget and education problems. So much for
the utter absence of evidence that Democratic lawmakers would ever
do anything to control spending and upset their union puppet
masters.
The San Francisco Chronicle’s editorial page said
compromising with Democrats was the key to righting the state. So
much for the fact you can’t compromise when the other side doesn’t
offer a plan.
The Contra Costa Times’ editorial page went from
praising the reforms in January to calling them divisive in April
and lamenting the $70 million cost if a special election were held
on the initiatives this fall. So much for the fact that two of the
governor’s proposals would each prevent spending many billions of
dollars the state doesn’t have, dwarfing the $70 million the paper
is so worried about.
The San Jose Mercury News’ editorial page even
parachuted in from some alternate reality to say the assertion that
the Legislature would never consider reform on its own was “mostly
a bum rap.” So much for the assumption that all editorial writers
are sentient.
However oblivious it may be, the carping has taken a toll.
Between the pundits’ potshots, the unions’ vicious attacks, and
some sloppy staff work that left flaws in his initiative petitions,
Schwarzenegger’s reform push has been staggered. He’s given up on
pension changes and merit pay for now, and while he says he’s
pushing ahead with his spending cap and redistricting proposals, no
one would be all that surprised if none of his initiatives qualify
this summer and force a fall election. The hope that was so common
in January and February — that 2005 would be the year California
stepped back from the brink — is fading, and fast.
