California?s governor and its elected lawmakers are at odds over the state budget. Not exactly a news flash.

Party leaders in the Legislature reached an agreement on a spending plan, in a manner of speaking, and the governor doesn?t like it. Neither should taxpayers and their future progeny.

And, of course, the budget agreement came months after it was supposed to, forcing California into the very awkward position of not being able to pay for services rendered to, and on behalf of state agencies.

If private-sector businesses were run the way this state?s government is run, they would be bankrupt and gone in a flash. Wait a second, that?s actually happening in the private sector.

But government is supposed to be different. Taxpayers are the Bstockholders,C and they are the ones who choose members of their Bboard of directorsC 8 the Legislature and governor 8 who are supposed to keep the BbusinessC going without spending more than is received in revenues.

But the system is badly broken. The Legislature missed the constitutionally mandated deadline for having a budget in place by more than two and a half months. Once a budget agreement was reached, the plan is so far out of touch with reality that the governor threatened a veto.

Lawmakers counterpunched with a pledge to over-ride the veto. If this actually happens, it would be a first in California.

And, as California icons Sonny and Cher told us a generation ago, the beat goes on.

We have to side with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on this one. The budget document agreed upon by party leaders relies on borrowing a couple of billion dollars from here, and another couple of billion from there, and hiding the whole contraption behind a facade of smoke and mirrors, calling it Bbalanced.C

It?s a distortion so obvious that it?s almost comical.

If this is the Legislature?s idea of compromise, California needs to vote this bunch out of office and start from scratch.

Republican leaders claim the new budget holds to their pledge of not raising taxes. That notion is patently ridiculous. The new budget would, among other things, force an increase in payroll taxes.

The GOP leadership?s promise of repaying taxpayers sometime in the future is just hollow, political hogwash. That kind of thing just doesn?t happen.

Democrats aren?t any better. They cling to the belief that state government can spend its way out of the fiscal hole. They haven?t met a spending proposal they didn?t like.

What is wrong with these people? Is there something in the Sacramento water supply that saps lawmakers of their ability to think and reason? What part of Bbalanced budgetC don?t they understand?

There is a simple solution to California?s chronic budget woes 8 but it?s not pretty. The answer is 8 and always has been 8 reduce spending and increase taxes, so that spending and revenue are in balance.

Better yet, devise a budget that spends less than the amount of tax revenue taken in, so California can build a cash reserve to help pay for emergencies, of which this state has more than its share.

This Legislature is trying to postpone the painful inevitability of an unbalanced budget. And the reason state lawmakers take this approach is laughingly apparent 8 they want to tell voters what good stewards of government they are during the next cycle of campaigning for re-election.

The federal government seems to have made a quantum leap into the bailout pool. California?s so-called leaders need to get this state on the list of potential bailout recipients.

If this budget mess isn?t resolved in a more sane manner, we will eventually be bankrupt.

September 18, 2008