The State of California, it is now plain for all who hadn't noticed previously, is dysfunctional. As much politically as economically. Many now are pointing out that the causes of our current demise, and therefore the fixes too, are technical by nature. The culprits are various: Proposition 13 radically restricts revenue collection by limiting property taxes for long-time California residents; the two-thirds vote required for any budget solution is next to impossible to achieve; narrowed term limits for state politicians produce turnover and inexperienced legislators; rule by Propositional mandate (which brought about the previous three policies) yields so much inflexibility and required spending as to limit the range of possible fixes, and so on. California is broke(n) on most every register and by almost any measure.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger speaks in San Francisco in March about budget-related measures ahead of the special election. (Photo: AP)

    After a grueling budget standoff between Republicans and Democrats in the state legislature this part year, a budget compromise of sorts was reached, more than eight months after the deadline to plug what was then a $15 billion budget shortfall in this fiscal year's budget. Addressing deeper deficits in ensuing years was postponed for future consideration - and fights. In the late stages of negotiation, every month delayed added a billion dollars to the spiraling shortfall. The compromise consisted of cuts, a sales tax increase and fairly substantial borrowing. Just three Republicans voted for the compromise, barely enough to reach the two-thirds vote needed in the legislature to pass a budget in California. Exhausted by the process, everyone exhaled. Perhaps too soon, for there was one more obstacle. A number of particular measures, including borrowing from the lottery and expenditures on education, required voter approval.

    In a special election on May 19, six budget propositions were contested. Governor Schwarzenegger, the Democratic-controlled legislature, counties, cities, towns, educators at all levels and activists for the poor, ill and aged urged passage. Not because they loved the compromise, but because there was no alternative. Fiscal doomsday desperadoes predicted Armageddon and opposed as gimmicks all but one of the measures. Five of the measures involved tax increases, borrowing and shifting funds from purposes previously prohibited to cover shortfalls. The sixth prohibited salary increases for legislators in years of budget deficits. Voter turnout was the lightest in historical memory. And the majority of those voting tended to be angry, narrow-minded, even vicious. Predictably, the five budget propositions were defeated. The sixth, restricting legislative salary increases, passed in a landslide. Overnight, the deficit ballooned to $21 billion, and when it was realized that recessionary tax collection had failed to meet expectations, to a staggering $24 billion. There we wallow today.

    That the California legislative process is in critical condition accordingly has become painfully apparent. So painfully it seems to have rendered the patient immune to any prescribed medication, no matter how invasive. But there seems to be a deeper divide at work, one more philosophical than technical, exacerbated by politics, to be sure, but constitutive of any possible response to the moment of emergency. It is the divide in what state we wish to inhabit, what world we would like to live in, what set of social arrangements we find if not appealing at least more palatable. It is that philosophical divide fueling the raging fire this time. For, as with our seasonal fires, the fury of which are prompted by overdevelopment and ecological inattention, the social fire raging right now is more deeply embedded in vastly different, and at least on one side intransigent, conceptions of social arrangement. These have become, not to be overdramatic about it, tantamount to "warring" philosophies.

    On one side is the conception increasingly identified with the right-handed wing of the Republicans. It has grown louder of late, as much on the California stage as on the national one. This is the set of views insistent upon small government, downsizing the state, leaving individual earnings to individual consumption choices. In its most robustly expressed version, state functions are to be minimized to essential services such as policing to ensure laws are obeyed, prisons for those who violate the law, emergency assistance in case of large-scale disasters including firefighting in a state known for its fierce firestorms. Pretty much everything else would be pay as you go, from hospitals to schools to roads.

    Identified as the position largely of the wealthier, this view cuts a slightly wider swath across the population when considered in light of demographic shifts since the Civil Rights Movement and the sixties more generally, especially in a state such as California. The wealthier tend in this society to be also more white. The Civil Rights Movement opened up state support to other population groups, not least in terms of welfare provision, medical care, schooling and to some degree employment opportunity. It is no coincidence, then, that those who saw their grip on state resources and power slipping somewhat became the principal advocates of scaling back the state in favor of expanding the individual's power. What ought to be left to the state should simply be its protective forces - indeed, protection as much against those not sharing one's interests as against natural forces. Call this position "minimalist."

    The counterview, not nearly as clearly or robustly articulated in California as it has been by candidate and now President Obama nationally, sees a social responsibility on the part of state government to make for a better social life on behalf of all its citizens, rich and poor, old(er) and young(er), of all backgrounds and stripes. On this view, those lacking the means deserve at least a base level of social services, medical care, education, housing, decent environmental conditions and transportation, whether serviceable roads or effective public transit. A decent life for all, no matter background or wealth, involves first making opportunities for the broadest segment of the population to earn the means themselves. But failing that, it means providing the baseline for a decent life. That's not simply a matter of a meal ticket in paradise. It's a matter of making a society all would want to live in, the better as much as the lesser well off.

    We are here, so this view argues, both collectively to look out for, if not after, each other and because that looking out, that social engagement and care, is what it means to live a decent social life. The society worth inhabiting is one in which all have access to a decent level of education, more or less equal, no matter one's economic standing. It is one in which a person has an equal shot at a life-saving medical procedure no matter one's social status. It is one in which we can all enjoy walks in state parks without having to pay an exorbitant entrance fee. And it is one in which we are not bouncing across tire-stripping potholes or stepping over homeless folks as we make our way to promenade along the beach front. Everyone contributes to make it work. It is, in short, a social conception in which we are prepared individually to pay more in quantity to secure a better quality of life together, to secure jobs that otherwise will disappear. This is a view perhaps characterized as "maximialist" not in the sense of "paying through one's teeth" but of maximizing the available conditions to better people's lives collectively. It might better be characterized as "contributivist."

    The minimalist understanding, to be sure, keeps contributivists honest regarding the fiscal instruments of state. It urges wise use of minimized public resources, a frugal modus operandi, with a view to minimizing wasteful expenditure. Contributivism, on the other hand, reminds minimalists that we are social beings, that minimalists, too, benefit inordinately from state resources both directly and indirectly, and that a society in which we care even indirectly for those we don't know is an inordinately better place to live than one in which narrow self-regard rules the day.

    California political leaders in the minimalist mold would resolve the budget crisis strictly through spending cuts, now pushed by spineless Schwarzenegger, citing vote voice. We are living beyond our collective means, they say, and this is the moment to sober up. Don't think about new revenue - read taxes or fees masquerading as taxes - because the cause of the crisis is supersized spending and Californians, especially wealthier taxpayers, are already over-burdened. The subtext is not just downsized government but an opportunity to strip away all social support or safety nets - from medical coverage to education at all levels, recidivism programs to recreational facilities. The voters have spoken, it is said, and these are their demands. Governor Schwarzenegger and the Republicans are now just giving voice to their vote.

    But barely hidden here are two plays at work. The first is pure political instrumentality. If we minimalists don't have the means to rule directly, we will do so by indirection. We will take the means away from those who do. Majority rule means nothing where the means to make a difference cease to be available. The second play is to remake the future political landscape. Take away the means of making people's lives better from those who make political promises and the voting public may either just cease showing up at the polls (as already happened May 19) or where they do show up it will be to express anger at those making idle promises and ceasing to deliver. Game, set, match.

    If contributivism as state condition and habit may be prone to wastefulness and perhaps even profligacy, minimalists are not just providing cover for meanness. In the Californian context, if the former have been known to overstate the benefits of state spending, the latter have been shameless in misrepresenting the facts. Overstated or not, it is clear that deep state cuts in recessionary times exacerbate and prolong the pain by reducing the capacity to consume and so tamping down on the very source of a recovery. The minimalist mantra is that California is the most taxed state in the Union. It is in fact eighteenth. The top earners, it is stressed, pay a disproportionate share of state income tax. The top one percent of earners in the state actually pay four percent less than the bottom twenty percent among taxpayers. If the tax burden of the wealthy goes up, they will leave, go elsewhere. Well, if they haven't already they are unlikely to now. Paradise has its attractions, and it is pretty hard to move from a place where the climate is as moderate as one could find anywhere, the attractions and sheer physical attractiveness are many, the culture is varied and the quality of life is hard to beat, dysfunctional politics notwithstanding. In any case, what personal sacrifices anywhere near comparable to the poor and disemployed are the wealthy prepared to make in mending the ship of state?

    As a result of this irresponsibility, the University of California is facing $530 million in cuts and unfunded mandates for fiscal year 2009-2010, on an annual state budget of $3.2 billion and a total budget of nearly $19 billion. Salary cuts and/or furloughs are inevitable, estimated at this time at five to seven percent. Additionally mandated contributions to the retirement plan are likely to rise by five percent over the next five years, totaling an overall reduction in compensation for staff and faculty of at least ten percent. And those cuts are for the fortunate as cuts to state medical support for the indigent, general welfare programs, and primary and secondary education are proving devastating. Shock capitalism indeed.

    At the same time, it has just been revealed that in the past year, as a way of getting Republicans to agree to an earlier budget fix now outdated, the state legislature passed a general tax reduction for corporations in the state scheduled to take effect as we enter the new fiscal year. The estimated cost in lost revenue to the state is $2.5 billion annually. The rationale: to encourage employment. Well, if employment really is the driving concern here, why not tie the reduction to job creation? For every job or five or ten a company creates, its tax burden will decrease by a factor representing, say, a smaller proportion of the tax revenue that job is likely to create. Nothing in the current structure of the corporate tax reduction requires that the savings go to job creation, rather than, say, increasing shareholder dividends or salary or retirement increases for the top executives.

    Minimalists are insisting that the vote of May 19 is a mandate only to cut spending and to resist any new revenue generation. But a number of points mitigate against that interpretation.

• First, voter interviews suggest anger at fiscal gimmicks, not taxes. A woman working for the Institute I run perhaps best represents wide sentiment: I am fed up with Sacramento politicians, she said. People want to see a serious fix, perhaps a mix of fiscal restraint, spending cuts and reasonable tax increases if it means an enduringly stable and socially responsible economy. That certainly beats losing one's job, one's home, one's dreams. Or seeing neighbors lose theirs.

• Second, as I noted above, voter turnout was the lowest on historical record - for pretty much any election across the country. Barely twenty percent of voters are deciding the way forward here. Or actually sixty percent of the barely twenty percent who voted. A democracy ruled by just twelve percent of the electorate. On one count, a week apart, more Californians voted for the winner of American Idol than voted against the propositions. Entertainment tonight as the opiate of our moment. In any case, there is hardly a mandate to call on here.

• Third, politicians masquerading as militant minimalists are the ones who, in holding hostage a budget fix for more than half a year, added a billion dollars a month to the deficit. Democratic legislators are calling for an interim budget fix by mid-June, to bring down the medium-term cost of credit to the state. Republicans are refusing, at an estimated cost in additional interest in borrowing of $500 million! So much for fiscal prudence.

• And fourth, more pointedly, only one of the propositions was explicitly about raising taxes, and then arguably only by indirection; it may be more plausible to read them as a spineless way of evading tax increases. If there is a message in the combination of outcome and low turnout, it is condemnation of the failure to show political courage. Minimalists, in short, continue to wage a battle of make-believe.

    I suspect that, baldly stated, there is a modicum of contributivism even among most minimalists: they, after all, stress charitable giving, and "free" markets have always relied heavily on various modes of state sponsorship. Those minimalists who would deny it would be horrified to see themselves conceptually reduced either to arch-anarchists or equally arch-autocrats. Having voted so overwhelmingly for President Obama, and having witnessed him move steadily to right the national ship of state through a version of contributivism, it would be surprising indeed to find Californians so readily retreating into such militant minimalism. The president has been pushing for a renewed social sensibility, to which much of the country has been gravitating steadily, if slowly. The steadier has become the surge, the louder has become the angry, if impotent, minimalist rhetoric.

    In the end, the choice for California is more or less between revenue-flat or -reduced minimalism and the devastation it is poised to cause to millions of lives across the state, short and long term, and a reasonably revenue-enhanced contributivism to pay and pave our way together for a system of ongoing social care and contribution. We seem to have reached well beyond the bewitching hour. The time has come for each of us to choose - for ourselves and for each other - which of these social states we would rather inhabit.

www.truthout.org/060909T