California heads for a budget showdown.

• Author: Weintraub, Daniel M.
• Position: Governor Pete Wilson's bid for more budget power

Governor Pete Wilson says his initiative giving him control over the budget is needed to avert a fiscal train wreck; critics say it's simply a grab for power. Voters will decide in November.

At last count, fewer than one in four California voters thought Governor Pete Wilson was doing a good job using the considerable clout the already wields as chief executive of the nation's largest state. Now Wilson is asking for even more power.

Wilson, the former San Diego mayor and U.S. senator serving his second year as governor, appears to have qualified for the November ballot an initiative that would give him unilateral authority to cut the state's budget in fiscal emergencies or whenever he reached an impasse with the Legislature, which is now under Democratic control.

So far, Wilson's ballot measure is better known for provisions that would restructure the state's welfare program. The initiative, which Wilson also has proposed to the Legislature, would reduce AFDC grants by as much as 25 percent, deny aid to children born to women already on welfare, reward teen-age mothers who stay in school and penalize teen moms who drop out or leave home. The measure also would deny full grants to the poor who move to California; they would receive the same amount they would have been eligible for in their former state for their first year in California.

But over the long run, the budget powers provisions, if approved by the voters, could prove to be the more historic elements of Wilson's bold proposal. After all, even if the welfare plan were not part of the initiative, the governor could use the budget authority he is proposing to cut grants by 25 percent or more, if he wanted to.

Wilson says the power shift is needed because the Legislature has let California's budget get out of control. Last year, his first in office, Wilson faced a $14.3 billion shortfall and agreed to raise nearly $8 billion in taxes to help erase it. But that plan failed when continued sluggishness in the economy kept revenue flat from one year to the next. Now the state confronts a $10 billion gap between anticipated revenue and the cost of providing all current services, plus expected growth in caseloads, for another 12 months.

"Unless we slam on the braes, we're headed for a fiscal train wreck," Wilson said recently. "The current budget system simply doesn't work. It is in need of fixing. It is broken."

Critics of the initiative, which include public employee unions, the League of...