Gov. Brown uses unrest in Egypt to justify vote on his budget plan

Examiner.com ^ | 1/31/2011 | Joe Alfieri

[JoeA]

California Governor Jerry Brown delivered his State of the State address this evening before a joint session of the California State Senate and Assembly. Speaking for about thirty minutes, Brown tried to tie his proposal for a special election to the crisis in Egypt.

"When democratic ideals and calls for the right to vote are stirring the imagination of young people in Egypt and Tunisia and other parts of the world, we in California can't say now is the time to block a vote of the people.” It’s a convoluted sentence, but no more so than equating the events in Egypt with a democratic movement. And calling GOP legislators “unconscionable” in attempting to block a public vote on his tax hikes, as though they were emulating Hosni Mubarak, is, well, unconscionable. Californians, some may recall, recently exercised their right to vote Brown into office.

Brown has proposed closing California’s $24.5 billion dollar budget gap with a combination of tax increases and spending cuts, in a plan to be placed before the electorate this year. His predecessor, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, was soundly defeated on a similar measure in 2008, and voters rejected several tax increase measures on the ballot this past November.

Brown was light on details, and long on rhetoric designed to appeal to both sides of the legislative aisle. “With 2 million Californians unemployed we must remove any unreasonable burdens and regulations that stand in the way of job creations.” That sounded good to conservative ears, but he took it back with his next sentence, emphasizing the word “reasonable,” leaving a hole large enough to drive a truck through.

[Lancey Howard]

"...we in California can't say now is the time to block a vote of the people.”

So, how did this scumbag Brown feel about the "vote of the people" when it came to Propositions 8 and 187?

[SoldierDad]

Ah, well, actually, this isn’t about “the people”. It’s about the dimocRATS in Sacramento being allowed to vote. Brown doesn’t give a rat’s @rse about what the people want (nor do the dimocRATS).