Abraham Lincoln finally had enough of Stephen

Douglas’ obfuscations when they met to debate in Charleston, Ill. He said,

“Judge Douglas is playing cuttlefish — a small species of fish that has no mode

of defending himself when pursued except by throwing out a black fluid which

makes the water so dark the enemy cannot see it, and thus it escapes.”

Lincoln’s cuttlefish story came to mind during

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s State of the State message when he blamed the

state’s massive budget deficit on formulas that lock in spending. On the same

day, a gubernatorial minion penned a column that claimed, “About 90 percent of the state’s budget is tied to

spending formulas, contracts and/or statutes, requiring spending to increase by

specific amounts each year.”

Behind that cloud of sophistry is a species of

politician trying to escape responsibility for a budget crisis of his own

making.

In fact, virtually all of the “formulas,

contracts and/or statutes” can be suspended with the same two-thirds vote that

is required to adopt the budget in the first place. Our budget crisis isn’t

because these politicians can’t suspend these “mandates” — it’s because they won’t.

True, there are a few expenditures required by

the state constitution. The state’s annual debt payments can’t be suspended,

although less borrowing can reduce them in the future. Unfortunately,

Schwarzenegger’s borrowing binge has increased

our annual debt obligation from $2 billion in 2003 to more than $7 billion.

The state’s pension payments are contractual

obligations that can’t be suspended, but shrinking the public workforce or

reforming pensions for new hires can reduce future obligations. Unfortunately,

under Schwarzenegger, the state employee rolls have grown at nearly twice the

rate of population growth.

In addition, there is one ballot proposition

that is beyond the control of the Legislature and the governor to suspend:

Schwarzenegger’s “after school program” that consumes roughly a half-billion

dollars each year.

Everything else can be suspended by the same

vote that adopts the budget — including every statute on the books. Even most

constitutional mandates provide for their own suspension. For example,

Proposition 98, which “mandates” that nearly half of the budget must go to

public schools, can be suspended by two-thirds vote. Not only did

Schwarzenegger refuse to do so through the last three years of declining public

school enrollment, he increased the Proposition 98 base — and therefore future

budgets — by billions of dollars above what Proposition 98 called for. That is

precisely why the governor has been forced to propose school cuts that are far

deeper than would otherwise have been necessary.

Similarly, the Legislature can force virtually

any contract back to the bargaining table by refusing to fund it fully in the

annual budget act. When Sen. Jackie Speier and I proposed doing so in 2004 in

an attempt to bring state prison guard salaries under control, Schwarzenegger

opposed it. Four years later, the governor proposes releasing 22,000 dangerous

felons.

Perhaps the most telling point is simply this:

when Senate Republicans desperately warned last summer that the budget was

dangerously unbalanced and attempted to enact reforms to avert the crisis,

Schwarzenegger campaigned against them.

When the budget was adopted last August, I

warned on the Senate floor, “Today we set in motion events that will require far

more difficult and painful decisions starting just five months from now in what

is likely to be a much worse economy … For the second time in a decade, this

state is being driven to another Gray Davis-sized fiscal crisis.”

The same day, the governor said, “I am pleased that the

Legislature has passed a responsible budget that protects California’s

priorities and keeps our economy strong. It was a challenging process but in

the end our legislative leaders came together to deliver a spending plan that

does not raise taxes, creates the largest reserve in history and reduces our

operating deficit after the spending vetoes that I have promised.”

It’s going to require more than a cloud of

rhetorical ink to cover that escape.