READ LIPS; WATCH WALLET

With a budget shortfall nearly three times the size of Maine’s entire state budget, California and its fiscal problems may not seem to have much in common with Maine. But Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, like Gov. John Baldacci, like governors in many states, took the same no-new-taxes approach to closing their budget gaps, accomplished this on paper and state residents found themselves paying more anyway.

California, because of its very large budget numbers, presents an opportunity to show just how meaningless is the pledge of no new taxes and, if voters are paying attention, to banish this idea from future budget debates.

No new taxes in California means millions of dollars in new fees for college students, $1.3 billion in withheld payments to municipalities, $7 billion in borrowing and delayed payments. Of the $14 billion shortfall, Gov. Schwarzenegger reportedly found $4 billion through actual program cuts and the remaining $10 billion through these other means.

This is not to say that it is a bad budget or that the program cuts are insubstantial. The budget could be exactly what California needs; but “no new taxes” is camouflage for finding other ways to charge residents more and boost the state treasury.

To balance Maine’s budget, Gov. Baldacci also raised fees, cut municipal school aid and decided not to conform Maine’s tax system to the federal tax system when Washington reduced taxes. Would it have been better to cut fees and reduce local taxes instead? That’s not a discussion anyone had because it could have meant raising state taxes, even though not raising state taxes results in higher costs in several other areas. Governors are in a bind on this because raising taxes always gets them a negative reaction, while raising fees just seems like a necessary bit of bookkeeping.

A budget conservative might say, just don’t raise fees or taxes or shift costs anywhere in the budget. This is easy to conclude if you don’t actually have to choose between, say, cutting prescription drug subsidies, which you know saves health care dollars, and reducing university funding, which you know keeps tuition lower. There’s waste in state budgets, but it almost always amounts to a small fraction of any shortfall, definitely worth removing but definitely not enough.

Not raising taxes has become shorthand for politicians to declare themselves fiscally conservative. But if they can avoid tax increases while collecting revenues from other areas, what have they accomplished? Re-election, a cynic might reply.