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(1/) My new Zócalo #ConnectingCalifornia column begins: "In the midst of California’s current catastrophe, we may be seeing, at long last, the demise of the dominant mode of thinking of our state’s leaders: “budgetism.” https://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/2021/01/26/california-budget-deficit-covid-19/ideas/connecting-california/
(2/) Budgetism is the false conventional wisdom—promoted relentlessly by our media and by elected officials of both parties—that the real measure of California’s success is the condition of the state budget. https://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/2021/01/26/california-budget-deficit-covid-19/ideas/connecting-california/
(3/) For decades, if the budget was balanced or in surplus, California was supposedly on the move, a superpower, a national model of success. If the budget was in deficit, California was supposedly in crisis, a failed state, or a cautionary tale for America...
(4/) But now the budget and everyday reality have diverged with tragic force. When @GavinNewsom earlier in January introduced a new budget with a $15 billion surplus, it occasioned little of the usual celebration and declarations of governance success.
(5/) That it has taken a once-in-a-century cataclysm to threaten our budget-centric thinking shows just how deeply ingrained budgetism has become in California, and just how divorced from reality our conversations about state governance have been.
(6/) Budgetism endured because it was an easy, one-number scorecard to judge governance in a complicated state. @GovernorDavis ended 2 decades of GOP dominance and reformed education, but he was judged a failure, and recalled, because he had big deficit post dot-com bust...
(7/) @Schwarzenegger might have brought political reform and historic #ClimateChange legislation, but he was judged a failure because he had a big deficit in the Great Recession. https://www.mercurynews.com/2010/12/30/mercury-news-editorial-schwarzenegger-legacy-is-crippled-by-budget-deficit/
(8/) The Jedi master of California budgetism was @JerryBrownGov, who—despite neglecting mounting problems in everything from housing to unemployment insurance—was a media darling because he had big surpluses. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/30/us/politics/california-jerry-brown-democrats-primary-hillary-clinton-bernie-sanders.html
(9/) The Luke Skywalker of budgetism was brilliant, young finance director and gubernatorial aide Ana Matosantos, a wizard at conjuring surpluses from California’s impenetrable budget rules. https://stanfordmag.org/contents/can-she-clear-up-the-budget-mess
(10/) But this particular force has a very dark side. Budgetism—by focusing so much attention on annual accounting—obscures deeper troubles. https://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/2021/01/26/california-budget-deficit-covid-19/ideas/connecting-california/
(11/) Our state’s leaders like budgetism because it offers cover for their inaction and their failures to manage agencies, to reform the state’s many broken systems, and to execute the progressive policies voters say they want. https://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/2021/01/26/california-budget-deficit-covid-19/ideas/connecting-california/
(12/) Why hasn’t the dark side of budgetism been more aggressively challenged? Because pols punish those who do. Democratic legislators who dare challenge budgets and demand more investment lose committee assignments and offices https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article145044744.html
(13/) Over the past decade, when I’ve taken on budgetism in public forums, and suggested we need broader constitutional reform to produce better governing systems and management, I’m often dismissed by politicians and fellow pundits as “unrealistic.”
(14/) When I suggested here that then-Gov. Brown resist budgetism and instead see more of California’s lived realities and broken systems in its different regions, he called me a “declinist” in his state of the state address. https://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/2014/01/09/cancel-the-state-of-the-state-speech/ideas/connecting-california/
(15/) I pray that politicians will finally pursue bigger changes, and broader measures. Good metrics would shift focus to management—in a state where more $$$ for homelessness hasn’t produced much housing and more unemployment $$$ don't always reach the unemployed.
(16/) It shouldn’t be that hard to come up with broader measures of California success. So far, the most serious effort at quantifying that is the California Dream Index from the reform powerhouse @MoveCAFWD https://cafwd.org/california-dream-index/
(17/) The index tracks progress and equity statewide and across 11 regions, on 10 indicators—air quality, short commutes, broadband access, early childhood, college/career education, income/cost of living, affordable rent, homeownership, neighborhoods, & drinking water.
(18/18) Quibble with those indicators, but it's the smartest measurement we have of California's performance. And it’s a much more accurate picture of the state’s health than whether the budget is in balance. https://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/2021/01/26/california-budget-deficit-covid-19/ideas/connecting-california/
