Insight : VIEW FROM WASHINGTON : Folks All Hate Big Government--Until They’re in Big Trouble

Jerry Sparks, from the Machinists union in Sunnyvale, Calif., was saying how his members need to be “looked on with a little dignity and respect” and should be saved from the corporate scrap heap when Lockheed merges with Martin Marietta. His voice on the edge of breaking, Sparks implored the audience, “There is a lot about our problems we cannot solve ourself.” Ron Jones, from Colossal Graphics in Palo Alto, asked for help in protecting his patents from overseas piracy.

And Deepak Chopra, from UDT Sensors in Hawthorne, complained that he can get big foreign orders for his sensors--but then it’s tough finding a bank to provide a loan so he can fill the contracts.

Here were the complaining Californians, coming all the way to Washington for a new sort of town meeting 3,000 miles from home. On a sunny, cloudless day last month, 140 people gathered in a Senate office building for a daylong talk fest hosted by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) to discuss the travails of a state still struggling to recover from its worst slump in 50 years. With national unemployment at 6.1% of the work force, California’s jobless rate is 8.9%; the figure is 10% in Los Angeles.

Boxer has clout, representing the state with the biggest single block of electoral votes--54 of the 270 needed to elect a President. And this enabled her to produce an impressive collection of Administration celebrities--Vice President Al Gore, Commerce Secretary Ronald H. Brown, Labor Secretary Robert B. Reich, budget director Alice Rivlin and Trade Representative Mickey Kantor, among others--to discuss policy and field questions.

The Clintonites delivered glowing accounts of their accomplishments, bragging about a reduced deficit for three years running and claiming credit for a revived national economy that generates 250,000 new jobs a month. Everyone talked of the blessings enjoyed by California--its educated residents, huge markets and terrific location for benefiting from booming world trade.

Their message: Believe in our policies. If the country prospers, California will come along for the ride.

Then it was time for questions. The audience in the Dirksen Senate Building was quiet at first, perhaps in awe of the big-name political folks, perhaps a bit jet-lagged.

Finally Laura D’Andrea Tyson, chairwoman of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers (and formerly a UC Berkeley economist), joked, “This is California weather; I know you’re awake,” and they began lining up at the microphones.

What quickly unfolded was a lesson in reality: that we all want help from the government, the Big Daddy in Washington we love to hate.

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Supposedly, these are days of distrust of the federal colossus. Candidates run for Congress by demonizing Washington as a den of vipers they single-handedly will exterminate. But after all the raging about waste, interference, rules and regulations, Americans realize they want the long arm of government to do something, anything, about their problems.

Melvin Thomas of Coronado, Calif., speaking for the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, wanted his workers to share in the defense conversion funds going to a San Diego shipbuilder.

Gloria C. Ma of Xxsys Technologies in San Diego, complained how hard it is for smaller firms to raise capital for marketing exotic products, such as her firm’s wrapping designed to keep freeway pillars from falling down.

Allen B. Gates, the head of Kaiser Electronics in San Jose, complained about regulations and accounting rules hampering the firm’s efforts to develop civilian-oriented products.

They all were crying for help because of the pains suffered by a California going cold turkey after decades as the biggest government junkie of all, mainlining those defense dollars. The state lost more than 600,000 jobs in three years; most of those, some 340,000, were linked to defense firms, subcontractors and related services.

The message from the Californians to the Clintonites was simple: Your grand talk of policy sounds fine, but give me something to get that defense monkey off my back.

In a less than soothing response, Tyson used an economist’s stilted version of Clinton’s famous campaign line, “I feel your pain.” As she put it: “California has had a very painful period of structural readjustment. It has to restructure its economic base and redeploy its skilled work force.”

Californians like to think of themselves as rugged individuals, scorning welfare and embracing hard work. But Tyson’s answer might not have been enough to satisfy the California business executives, union officials and academics who came to Boxer’s Washington seminar--not to mention the millions of voters back home.