[Brown] acknowledges several miscalculations of enduring impact during his two terms in the Governor's Office, from 1975 to 1983... Now he has the benefit of hindsight and a chance to try again. What Brown says he learned offers a glimpse into how, at age 72, he would govern differently from his younger self.
...The mistake with perhaps the greatest political impact on Brown's career was his controversial 1981 decision to forgo aerial spraying against the Mediterranean fruit fly, which was threatening California's important agriculture industry... The 43-year-old governor ignored the warnings of federal regulators and instead followed the advice of a UC Berkeley entomologist who assured him that the flies would die off once winter set in... That prognosis proved wrong, and Brown finally OK'd spraying after several states and nations threatened quarantines on certain California produce...
...Brown suffered another setback on the environmental front when voters in 1982 repealed legislation he had signed that would have built a peripheral canal delivering water from the Sacramento River straight to the start of the California Aqueduct in Tracy... Nearly 30 years later, the state has yet to build such a canal, and fish stocks, water quality and other environmental factors in the Delta have only worsened.
Blind adherence to the eco-Statists' agenda? Check.
[Another controversial area was] the state's "determinate sentencing" law, which scaled back judicial discretion in prison sentences. Brown now says he didn't foresee its dramatic impact on the growth of California's prison population and has called for revising the law...
"The prisons started building up about the time I was leaving," Brown said in the recent interview. "But they didn't stop. They just kept on going. We see now that the determinate sentence, which I signed, needs substantial revision..."
...Brown said he's seen other laws – such as the California Environmental Quality Act and the launch of the state Fair Political Practices Commission – take similarly unpredictable paths.
Blind adherence to central planning? Check.
"As governor, Jerry Brown increased state government spending by 120 percent," [Meg] Whitman told the state GOP convention last month. "And he left the state with a budget deficit. He took a $6 billion surplus and turned it into a $1 billion deficit."
..."I am very frugal, very efficient, lean, and I am going to run this campaign in a way that every dollar counts," he said in June, "and that's the same way I'm going to run the state of California."
Yes, Brown -- a far Left Democrat Statist -- promises California voters he'll be "frugal" this time around. And that he won't offer blind adherence to the cult of central planners.
Anyone in California who believes that and votes for Brown despite his abysmal record deserves what they get.
2 comments:
Hope and change is always just what it promises, no matter what it promises. It will be interesting to see if Californians are up for more hope and change. Although that phrase really ought to be called something else if honesty were to be employed, say... creation of the need for hope... and chains.
I can't say Californians deserve it. If they vote for it, however, I need to say nothing.
Brown also oversaw the creation of the California Energy Commission. In its 40 year life it has yet to create any energy but it consumes $500 million a year.
My suggestion for fixing the state budget deficit would start right there - kill the Energy Commission and save half a billion immediately.
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