Jerry Brown’s Herculean challenge

11 November 2010 |permalink | email article

The governor-elect better enjoy his brief vacation in Arizona this week. It may be his last for a long while after a visit to the state Capitol last week when he was informed by Department of Finance officials that the California’s budget deficit has grown to $25.4 billion, including a $6 billion shortfall in the spending plan lame duck Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed last month.

Brown reportedly said the budget deficit was “as bad as you could imagine.” He will be forced to confront the problem head on when sworn into office in January, and faces a constitutional deadline to present a state budget just a week later. It will be deja vu all over again, only far worse. When Brown was sworn in for his first term in 1975 he declared an “era of limits,” and tightened the state belt even as a record state surplus mounted.

Legislative analyst Mac Taylor said in his report that California is unlikely to get the $3.5 billion in federal funding that lawmakers relied upon when they approved the 2010-11 budget in October, more than 100 days late. Worse still, the legislative analyst expected the state to face annual budget problems of about $20 billion each year through 2015-16. It makes one ponder whether the Golden State is in financial danger of sliding into the Pacific Ocean before then.

 

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