Brown’s budget helps schools, poor; saves for rainy day
By John Myers , Melanie Mason and Christine Mai-Duc, Los Angeles Times
By now, it could easily be called Gov. Jerry Brown’s budget doctrine — an insistence on only modest expansions in state services but liberal payments for one-time expenses and accumulated government debt.
In his new $170.7-billion budget proposal to legislators, Brown is again staying consistent with his creed.
The plan provides a sizable boost to public education and only modest help to low-income families, but its most important component may be how much money would be stashed away for future budget deficits.
Brown proposes making an additional $2-billion payment into the state’s rainy-day fund, growing the size of the reserve account by next summer to almost two-thirds of its legally mandated goal. That would be significantly ahead of schedule, but a decision the governor insisted is essential.