California lawmakers need to get moving

From Sacramento —  When you’re in a bad spot, where you can only lose no matter what, the best strategy is to move. The quicker the better.

Or as Republican strategist Rob Stutzman puts it, using a D-Day analogy: “When you’re on the beach taking fire, you can’t stay there. You’ve got to get to the cliff or die.”

Both parties in the Legislature are in losing situations on the $25-billion budget deficit.

Democrats must cross their core constituencies — health and welfare groups, labor patrons — in order to cut enough spending to pass an honestly balanced budget, even one that includes an extension of temporary tax increases.

Republicans can’t get out of their fix without angering the anti-tax crowd they cower to. Either they compromise and allow a tax extension measure to be placed on a special election ballot or they’re seen as obstructionists or, worse, irrelevant, doing nothing in Sacramento except drawing their public pay and perks.

Not even Republicans — well, maybe a handful — are willing to slash spending deep enough to make up for the $13.5billion in revenue that would be produced by Gov. Jerry Brown’s tax proposals. And Democrats certainly would rebel.

Both sides would revert to the tawdry gimmicks that have resulted in kicking the budget can down the road for many years and digging the deficit hole deeper.

“Off the record, an all-cuts budget is not going to be good for anyone,” said one Republican, who requested anonymity because the GOP is not yet admitting that publicly.

The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst, at the request of Senate Democrats, unveiled a nasty list of gimmick-free cuts that would be necessary if the temporary increases in income, sales and car taxes aren’t extended for five years as requested by Brown. They included much deeper slashes in K-12 schools, universities, social services and courts.

That probably would result in a shorter school year, larger elementary class sizes and even higher college tuitions. State salaries would be pared, and so would the wages of those who provide in-home care for the elderly and disabled. Many welfare-type programs would be eliminated. And there’d be a one-year moratorium on public works bonds.

Odds are those desperate actions would not play well with the public, even if it is leery of tax increases, er, extensions.

So it’s logical that the Legislature would want to avoid that doomsday, no-taxes scenario and just get on with making the necessary moves. Get past this very bad place and onto more positive ground like education reform, water development and renewable energy.

Democrats seem to be moving at a brisk pace on spending cuts, but Republicans still are crawling on tax negotiations.

The Legislature needs to pass a compromise package within the next three or four weeks in order for Brown to call a special election in June. If that deadline is missed, the earliest balloting would be in late September, because voters tend to ignore political pitches during the summer vacation season.

Of course, the governor and the Legislature wouldn’t even need a special election — they could have handled the tax issue themselves — if Brown hadn’t promised voters not to raise taxes without their permission. But now they’re stuck with a politically smart but policy-dumb commitment.

Actually, it places Republicans in a unique position of power, given their small numbers. They hold only slightly more than one-third of the seats in each house, but that’s enough to block Democrats from generating the two-thirds majority needed to put a tax extension on the ballot.

There’s a brief window of opportunity now for the GOP. It can capitalize on political leverage that it may not possess again for years.

“The Republicans have a phenomenal amount of leverage to secure reforms, either to improve the business climate or control government spending or both,” Stutzman says. “And I believe that they are beginning to understand that.”

This week, the Senate GOP compiled a list of six “reforms” — without details — that it might demand in exchange for tax votes. They’re public pension rollbacks, a state spending cap, regulatory streamlining, tax restructuring, litigation limits and civil service efficiencies.

“Now is the time,” Senate leader Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) told me. “They hold the trump card. We’re open to discussing things that will create fiscal stability going forward.

“But they shouldn’t overreach in ways that aren’t reasonable given the [party] numbers in each house.”

Before Republicans will even begin to discuss trading reforms for tax votes, they insist that Democrats make the $12.5billion in spending cuts necessary to balance the budget with the tax extensions.

Democrats in both houses intend to finish the cutting in their budget committees Friday and send the pared spending proposals to a conference committee next week. Full house votes are planned the week after.

“We know what we have to do,” Steinberg assured Republican leader Bob Dutton of Rancho Cucamonga on Monday during

a brief Senate floor exchange.

Dutton later told me: “We’re still trying to figure out what Democrats are actually willing to cut.”

Democrats say their cuts will pretty much match the governor’s proposals, which have drawn heat from everyone from mayors to students to the disabled.

Meanwhile, Dutton said, “we’re fine-tuning our [proposed] reforms.”

He added: “There’s no point in delaying this. Let’s get started. I don’t like the game any more than anyone else.... We keep procrastinating. As long as we keep putting off the tough decisions, they don’t get any easier.”

But the odds of compromising in time for a June primary? “I don’t think the prospect is very strong at all.”

It’s painful to move. But more dangerous to stay on the beach.

george.skelton@latimes.com