Schrag on Schwarzenegger at the Exact Midpoint of His Tenure as Governor--Is Our Action Figure Taking Care of California's Mundane Business?

Like his predecessor, he also proposes to "securitize" tobacco suit settlement money -- meaning that the state borrows against future revenues from the settlement and pays the lenders from those revenues. Is that what he meant when he promised to "tear up the credit card"?

The Legislature meanwhile is in heat about loosening term limits -- changing the law enacted by voters in 1990 from a limit of eight years in the Senate and six years in the Assembly to an advertised total of 12 years in whichever house.

But since it allows for a "transition" allowing any sitting legislator to serve 12 years in the house in which or she is now ensconced, it would give termed out Assembly members another six years and senators another four.

Among them: Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez and that great conservative, Sen. Tom McClintock, who when he's termed out will have been in the Legislature for 22 years and is likely to remain there another four if the term limits change passes. Term limits was a dumb idea to begin with and, like a lot of such things, it has spawned a lot of dishonesty and more stupidity in its wake.

Meanwhile, the fight continues over that hardy perennial, redistricting reform. Schwarzenegger says he won't support the term limits measure, which is likely to be on the February presidential primary ballot, without reforms that would take the redistricting process out of the hands of the Legislature and give it to some nonpolitical group.

For the moment, all are on their best behavior. The legislators' desperate hope that the voters will allow them to keep their jobs a few more years greatly increases the chances that California will have a budget, if not on time, then before the end of this month, no matter how much it's laced with borrowing, asset sales and other gimmicks.

Delayed budgets, of course, mean very little except maybe to some state employees and vendors who have to wait for their money. But because it's a simple issue and the media make a big issue of it, budgets become a surrogate for effective government. Get the thing signed on time regardless of the collusion of fiscal irresponsibility that produces it, and it shows that Sacramento is working. Drag the process into August, and it proves the system is broken.

Meanwhile, the structural budget deficit runs to the horizon and beyond, the holes closed with borrowing (as usual), cuts in aid to the state's poorest workers, a shift of transportation money to the general fund and the one-time fixes and revenues from the sale of state assets.

But there'll be no re-examination of the imbalance between revenues and spending, which produces the deficit, no concern about the long-term fiscal impact of the borrowing and the other one-time fixes, just business as usual. Global warming and stem cells will always be a better show.

Peter Schrag is former editorial page editor of the Sacramento Bee. This article is published with his permission.