Our view: Compromise:a concept loston Legislature?

The will to compromise can be a fleeting thing.

As individuals, we exercise it every day. From obeying traffic laws to cooperating with co-workers, we couldn't function in society without being somewhat accommodating to others. We all know people who choose to do as little accommodating as possible; we tend to think of them as dysfunctional, eccentric or at least reclusive.

This acceptance of compromise as essential gets diluted when we move beyond our daily lives and into the public arena. From presidential politics to small-town decision-making, many of us adopt a new set of rules as we push for our causes: fight as hard as you can, because after all, you're in the right.

Americans were treated to back-to-back national political conventions over the last two weeks, a rare juxtaposition that spotlighted just how polarized the leaders of our political parties truly are even as they attempt to attract the all-important undecided voters in the middle. The level of eloquence varied, but the speakers generally followed this theme: We're right (and we represent America's only hope), they're wrong (and they'll destroy America). Occasionally, they noted the need to find common ground, then quickly resumed firing oratorical missiles over that ground toward enemy territory.

The political bashes have broken up in Denver and St. Paul, but an agonizingly protracted one continues in Sacramento. Legislators cannot bring themselves to perform their most essential function: approve a state budget for a fiscal year that began more than two months ago. This causes more problems by the day. It terrorizes state employees, especially when Gov. Schwarzenegger proposes they work without pay or at minimum wage until the dispute is resolved. It forces local jurisdictions to fly blind without knowing what level of funding they'll get from the state.

California's expenses exceed its revenues by billions of dollars. Democrats want to cut spending and raise taxes. Republicans want to cut spending and borrow money. Schwarzenegger is willing to cut spending and temporarily raise taxes if a future tax cut is built into the deal.

This is political dysfunction at its most basic. Republican and Democratic legislators know they cannot pass a budget without buy-in from the other party. They knew that months ago.

Perhaps most maddening is the politicians' contention that their intransigence reflects the will of the voters who elected them. Republicans use that reasoning to oppose any tax increase; Democrats to oppose deep cuts in services. News flash: The voters elected all members of the Legislature and expect them to balance the state budget.

This brings us back to compromise. We all know we have to embrace it in our daily lives, but at crunch time in the supercharged atmosphere of politics, our leaders pretend it's a foreign concept.

Gee, do you think there might be some middle ground here that includes limited tax increases and significant spending cuts?

When reckless teenagers play a game of chicken, they at least harbor a legitimate hope that their opponent will back down at the last moment. In Sacramento, Democrats and Republicans drove straight ahead knowing they would leave state government in a heap of smoldering wreckage.