Time for Brown to hit the road
Blog by John Fensterwald/Educated Guess
Gov. Jerry Brown is betting that the light he plans to shed on the state budget will produce some heat. Brown will soon launch a don’t-make-me-do-it budget tour, hoping that speaking bluntly in public will help do what negotiating in private has failed to do so far: convince a few Republicans to let the people decide whether to extend temporary state taxes. Otherwise, he says he’ll give the Legislature an all-cuts budget, slashing spending by $26.6 billion, including the $11.2 billion cut so far. His staff haven’t released his itinerary yet, but Brown said Tuesday he’ll be in Orange County on Saturday at a California Cadet Corps event. Another stop will be Riverside County, home of Senate Minority Leader Bob Dutton and of Bill Emmerson, one of five Republican senators Brown was negotiating with before the governor declared the talks futile and broke them off last week, ending plans to put tax extensions before voters in June. (more...)