Jerry Brown’s Last Hurrah

[Geee]

National Review:

DECEMBER 2, 2010 12:00 A.M.
Jerry Brown’s Last Hurrah
What will California’s once and future governor do next?

Currently, the most interesting political question is not whether Barack Obama will triangulate after his party’s midterm shellacking — he probably won’t — but what in the world California’s new/old governor, Jerry Brown, will do in January 2011.

At 72, Brown is returning to a third term as California governor after a hiatus of 28 years to face a $26 billion budget deficit and an unemployment rate above 12 percent. So is it to be more taxes, more government, both, or neither?

Both conservatives and liberals agree that Brown will probably do what California’s progressive voters elected him to do: keep government and its services big and find the necessary revenue from corporations and more affluent individuals to pay for it. The real debate is whether he can pull that off in recessionary times.
Conservatives believe he cannot. They argue that the California model of huge public-sector salaries and pensions, high taxes, intrusive government, and unchecked illegal immigration is unsustainable, and a prescription for Third World–like chaos and poverty. In this pessimistic view, California is just a year or two behind Greece and Portugal, but without a Germany to bail it out — especially now, with a tight-fisted, Republican-led House that soon may cut off federal subsidies to a now-insolvent California.