A THOUSAND POINTS OF PORK : SPENDTHRIFT DEMOCRATS EYE BUDGET WINDFALL FOR PET PROJECTS INSTEAD OF BACKING CAR-TAX PHASEOUT.

Byline: Tom McClintock 

FIVE months is practically a geologic epoch in Sacramento politics, in which history is measured in days and future vision in nanoseconds. But sometimes ancient events offer a perspective on modern problems, and the date of Jan. 9, 1998, is a good place to start.

On that long ago and forgotten day, Gov. Pete Wilson unveiled his 1998 budget. It was a record-breaking $73.8 billion spending plan, including a hefty 4.5 percent increase in general fund spending and a $2.9 billion - or 12.6 percent - increase in funding for public schools.

Dancing immediately broke out in the vast corridors of the state's bureaucracy. ``(Wilson's) best budget so far,'' bubbled state Senate Democratic leader Bill Lockyer.

``We ought to change about six things and pass it next week,'' chirped Senate Democratic Budget Chairman Mike Thompson.

State schools Superintendent Delaine Eastin had the most ecstatic words. ``I feel like I've died and gone to heaven,'' she gushed. ``Clearly good news for California's schoolchildren.''

The only grumbling came from the Capitol's few conservatives who noted that not a dime was set aside for general taxpayer relief.

More than five months have passed since those heady days back in the budget's Cretaceous period. Now, the entire spending lobby is moaning under the yoke of an impossibly tight budget year.

Eastin, who thought she'd died and gone to heaven in January, was complaining by April, ``You can't have world-class standards on a Third World budget.''

What catastrophe brought the state from heaven in January to the Third World by April? An unexpected $4.4 billion had appeared in the state treasury - the product of an expanding economy.

With the windfall, the governor proposed adding to his ``heavenly'' schools budget an additional $522 million, bringing the one year increase to $3.4 billion, or 15 percent. More ``good news for California's schoolchildren''?

Not exactly. ``He's still giving the schools money as if we are in a recession,'' sniffed Eastin. ``He's going to give us a few nickels to shut us up.''

A few nickels? A 15 percent increase - for a total 46 percent increase in just three years? A few nickels?

``A tragedy,'' said Democratic Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa.

Oh Lord, send us fires, floods, earthquakes, droughts and blizzards. But have mercy, we can't stand any more money. Amen.

Indeed, the Assembly's industrious spenders immediately dreamed up over 1,000 new ways to spend the state's windfall.

It is the old adage attributed to John D. Rockefeller. ``How much money is enough?'' a reporter once asked. ``It's always just a little more than you have,'' replied the world's richest man.

In the case of the modern welfare state, it is always just a lot more.

So here's a modest proposal for resolving the budget ``crisis'' caused by all this new money. Pass the governor's January budget that everyone - except taxpayers - thought was a slice of heaven.

That leaves the embarrassing little matter of $4.4 billion that's still stuffed in the state treasurer's mattress.

What's a poor little rich state to do? It could begin by adding a billion dollars to the state's budget reserve - a quaint notion from California's bygone days of responsible budgeting. That would restore the 3 percent budget reserve we maintained back when the Earth was young and California had a triple-A credit rating.

Next, perhaps the Legislature would like to pump $1.7 billion into the school construction crisis that it declared this spring and then proceeded to do - surprise - precisely nothing about. Since this isn't a state bond issue heavily laden with interest, this is the purchasing equivalent of $3 billion of borrowed money.

That leaves $1.7 billion. That's almost enough for the first two years of a five-year phaseout of the car tax.

Abolishing the car tax would ultimately mean $370 more each year for an average two-car family to buy 40 new books for their children to read or to afford the phonics tutoring their daughter desperately needs or to buy a used computer for a family that has never owned one.

Or, we could buy into the thousand points of pork that are now pending before the Assembly budget committee: a mobile sound stage for Ontario, a boxing program in Fontana, a swimming pool in El Monte, a state rodeo, a park kiosk in Mariposa. And on and on.

A word of advice based on past history: Don't buy that computer for your kids just yet.