Jerry Brown warns of stark budget cuts

Gov. Jerry Brown says voters need to make a hard choice about how much government they are willing to pay for. Photo: Ken James, SFC / SF

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Sacramento --
Gov. Jerry Brown is willing to remake California in his own austere image, but he doesn't think the 37 million people living in the Golden State will like it.

Californians face a "day of reckoning" this November, when they will have to make the hard choice about how much government they are willing to pay for, the governor said Saturday in an interview with The Chronicle.
"There is a lot of magical thinking in Washington and in Sacramento and, maybe, I might even say, Western civilization," he said. "We had it easy and now the moment of truth is upon us. ... We've got to pay for what we want.

"And if we don't want to pay, then we have to deprive ourselves of that which we would like, and it's very hard to get people to make that choice."

Brown said the result of his Proposition 30 initiative on the November ballot will be a "compact between the people and the government" that he will implement.

But voters need to realize that without the new revenue, the cuts needed to get the budget into balance will leave California a very different state.

"I'm ready for austerity, OK?" the former Jesuit seminarian said. "I took vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. I am ready, OK? I don't recommend it, but we will do whatever is needed within the law to balance the budget and do the work of government the best way I can."

Tough decision

The governor's ballot measure, which would raise the sales tax by a quarter cent for four years and the income tax on high earners for seven years, will force that decision.

"I will do everything I can to help people make an intelligent choice, but whatever the people decide, they have decided, and I will be their instrument of execution," he said.

Brown said he plans to raise at least $30 million to promote his initiative, which faces not only opposition from groups that are against any increase in taxes, but also competition from another measure - Proposition 38 - that would raise income tax rates on nearly all Californians and dedicate the money almost entirely to public schools.

The governor said Prop. 38 would not fix the state's budget problems and would be akin to putting icing on a burned cake.

"You can't fool around with the frosting," he said. "You have to deal with the cake."

Because the state's general fund - basically the main checking account to pay for services - provides the bulk of money to public schools, not shoring up the fund will impact schools no matter the outcome of Prop. 38, Brown said.

"If that fund has got a big hole, that hole will show up in every classroom in California," he said. "That's just the way it is, so you've got to fix the budget. My plan is built to help the schools, but also to fix the budget."
Brown's proposal will raise as much as $9 billion per year, according to the Department of Finance, with that money providing money for schools and other state services. Prop. 38 would raise about $10 billion per year for 12 years and require that most of the money be spent on public schools.

For the first four years under Prop. 38, $3 billion of the annual revenue would be dedicated to paying back the state's bond debt, which proponents argue will help the budget. The principal financial backer of the measure, wealthy Southern California civil rights attorney Molly Munger, said Friday that the bond money would help to not "leave anybody in the lurch."

"What we need to do this year is we need to save our public schools, and we need to get out of this budget crisis in a near term way and give us some breathing room on all those big question issues," Munger said.

Getting on the ballot

Holding a public vote on increased taxes and straightening out California's finances have been the paramount objectives of Brown's third term in the governor's office, but he was stymied by Republicans in the Legislature last year. Brown had wanted the Legislature to place the measure on the ballot, but that required a two-thirds vote from lawmakers that never came.

So the governor went another direction, collecting enough signatures to place the measure on the ballot.
If the ballot initiative fails, the famously frugal Brown said he would "fix the budget based on the absence of money."

To illustrate his approach to austerity, he began pointing at objects around his office.
"This is my desk, I paid for it," he said, pounding his fist on a large table. "That desk, I paid for that. ... That little thing belonged to my father. That table, I paid for that, OK? I didn't fix the rug. That's Arnold's rug," he said, pointing at stains on the carpet.

He wondered aloud how he could be any cheaper, adding that he ate a 2-day-old tuna fish sandwich for lunch Friday.

The governor said he would be spending the weekend considering the hundreds of bills that await either his signature or his veto. He bristled when asked what else might be on his agenda during his four-year term, listing a host of objectives he already has started, including a timber harvest plan and expanding oil production in Kern County.

"I'm doing stuff, you know. How much time in the day is there?" he said. "I'm not going to a lot of events. I'm not going to play golf. I'm not going to games. I'm not going to movies. I'm not going to Hawaii. I'm doing stuff."

Wyatt Buchanan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: wbuchanan@sfchronicle.com

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