How Will Jerry Brown Close California's Budget Deficit?
Comments (3)
Next year's budget deficit has been estimated at $12 billion on the low side and $19 billion on the high side, so the situation will be slightly better than this year.
Like in his campaign, the governor-elect has continued to say the state must make tough choices, but he hasn't said what sort of choices he will push for when he releases his budget proposal in early December.
"But after running a characteristically enigmatic campaign, Mr. Brown will take office wrapped in the kind of mystery that he has seemed to enjoy in a career that has kept friend and foe off balance," the New York Times notes.
The newspaper questions if he will be willing to make state employees work longer to earn their full pensions, especially since they spent $30 million to get him elected.
Brown has promised to make the "budget process transparent and called for a 'grand civic dialogue' that will include people from throughout the state and from all socio-economic backgrounds to talk about what California's spending priorities should be."
Nothing about this first two days has been transparent. Will he stand up to unions, restore cuts made to schools and universities and where will he find the money to invest in green jobs?
Reach executive producer Paresh Dave here. Follow him on Twitter: @peard33.
Comments
I don't think he needs to worry about offending his supporters. He was hired to fix this state and put us back on track. His supporters all know that. He's going to do the best he can with what he has to work with.
He will cut schools, Universities, fire protection, police, close the state parks, and lay off an furlough state workers in a way Shwarzenegger and Whittless can only dream of, because he is a Democrat. He will carry out the Ruling Class Agenda and at the same time stifle all opposition. Time to dump the democrats!
Can he stand up to a major supporter and save billions by simply opening 50,000 contract facilities to house technical violators and “wobblers”? All that is needed to save billions is for the Governor to tell the Director of Corrections to put out Requests for Proposals for more contract beds. Opening 50,000 contract beds to house the technical violators and “wobblers” would save $1,124,800 in annual prison operating costs and avoid spending $15 billion in construction costs. California has only 3% of its inmates in contract facilities compared to 13% in Texas and 17% in the federal prison system. Sounds pretty simple but it would offend one of his big supporters, the CCPOA. What do you think he will do?