Even as he faces the possibility of becoming the first governor in California history to be recalled, Gray Davis is still selling out the state's future.

You'd think the recall effort itself would have sent Davis the message that voters are fed up. Fed up with his pay-to- play system that rewards campaign contributors above everyone else; fed up with the anything-for-a-vote pandering that has resulted in drivers' licenses for illegal immigrants and a whole slew of other bad laws; fed up with his way of pushing the state's problems into future years where they will be greatly magnified, instead of tackling them today.

But no. He's still at it, with an even greater fervor than before.

It's the last problem on that list that is potentially the most dangerous, because voters won't see it coming. Davis is burying land mines that will explode in the faces of future generations.

The energy crisis was one of the first. Instead of raising energy rates in response to the crisis, which might have cost him some popularity points initially, he paid the costs out of the state treasury and then sold about $10 billion in bonds to pay off the general fund. Paying that bond debt will be a drag on the general fund for many years to come and energy bills still went up.

Deferring political pain has also been the guiding force behind Davis' state budgets. Rather than deal with economic hardships as they arose, he "balanced" his budgets precariously with borrowing, fuzzy accounting and overly optimistic predictions that will almost certainly fail to materialize.

Such self-serving tactics have driven the state further and further into debt. This year's budget, though it erases a nearly $30-billion deficit on paper, relies heavily on borrowing and ensures that the next fiscal year will start with at least an $8-billion shortfall.

The deal Davis made this week with the California State Employees Association, the largest public employee union in the state, is the last straw.

The agreement with the labor union, one of Davis' largest campaign contributors, will add as much as $1 billion in extra costs to the state budget with such concessions as increased insurance contributions and 12 additional paid holidays a year (state workers already get 13). And Davis' staff had the nerve to tout the $150 million in "savings" because the union agreed to defer a pay raise this year.

California can't take much more of this.

When Californians assess Davis' performance, there's more to consider than what he has done to the state in the past five years. The money problems he has pushed into the state's future may turn out to be the most damaging of all.