Another formula will not fix budget

For a government already spending itself disastrously close to collapse, writing in stone strict budget formulas that almost certainly would insure even higher spending, while restricting lawmakers' discretion, would be a terrible thing to do with taxpayers' money.

Nevertheless, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger would effectively guarantee precisely that with a proposed constitutional amendment. Already, too much of Sacramento's budget decision-making is on auto-pilot, dictated by arcane legal formulas and other constitutional amendments.

The governor is upset that, since 1981, state spending on higher education declined from about 10 percent of the budget to 7 percent, while spending on state prisons increased from about 3 percent to nearly 11 percent.

Spending more taxpayer money to keep criminals behind bars than is spent to keep college students in class may be inverted priorities, as the governor says. But handcuffing future Legislatures with arbitrary spending ratios isn't a reasonable remedy.

The governor's proposal, announced last month but not yet formally advanced, would ask voters to amend the constitution to require that, beginning in fiscal year 2014-15, no more than 7 percent of the general fund be spent on prisons, and no less than 10 percent on education.

That might sound innocent, even worthwhile. But such a straitjacket would dramatically increase college funding, which lawmakers and the governor are already inclined to do, and have much less chance of reducing prison spending in absolute or relative terms. Unless the Legislature and governor make tough decisions, which they aren't inclined to do, the state faces even higher prison costs because of federal court orders.

We envision the governor's constitutional amendment sparking a horrific game of leap frog, as legislators finagle ways to make higher education spending a large enough portion of the budget, yet are restrained by the courts from reducing prison spending to its smaller percentage target. This is a formula for substantially more spending and larger budgets.

The independent state Legislative Analysts' office urged lawmakers to reject the governor's proposal to put the measure on the ballot for "various reasons," not the least of which is its arbitrariness and the damage it would do to other state spending priorities. We agree. Legislators and the governor should make the hard decisions, not impose hard and fast arbitrary dogma on future generations.