Brown Redux: Governor Moonbeam Runs Out of Magic Dust
16th December 2010
“We’ll present a budget on Jan. 10. It will be a very tough budget, but it will be transparent,” he said. “We’ll lay it out as best I can. We’ve been living in fantasy land. It is much worse than I thought. I’m shocked.”
Uh, Jer, that’s your side what was doin’ it.
“This is really a huge challenge, unprecedented in my lifetime,” Brown told hundreds of educators, union representatives and parents who had gathered at UCLA. “I can’t promise you there won’t be more cuts, because there will be.”
Yeah, right.
These conditions, the budget session made clear, are likely to get worse. The state faces a $28-billion budget gap for the next 18 months, and roughly $20-billion deficits annually through the 2015-16 fiscal year. Non-university education accounts for roughly 40% of state spending, so cuts tend to significantly affect the state schools.
Looks like cuts, eh, Jer?
“The day of reckoning is upon us and I’m determined to bite the bullet, get it done in whatever way the consensus of California can be built,” he said. “Fair, transparent and enduring — that’s my goal.”
Educators responded by calling for an end to cuts, asking for greater discretion at the local level as to how dwindling dollars are spent, urging the state to seek more federal funding and requesting legislation that would allow them to increase local property taxes with 55% of the vote rather than the current requirement of two-thirds.
And there you have it — California heads toward the ditch, and the drivers are arguing over the seatcovers.