Jerry Brown's state won't be what it was

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | January 26, 2013 | Joe Garofoli

[artichokegrower]

With the state budget balanced for the first time in years, Gov. Jerry Brown is roaring that "California is back," painting a rosier future for California with gauzy predictions of its "rendezvous with destiny."

But beneath the governor's flowery evocations of "bold pioneers" who followed "every failure with an even greater success," Brown tacitly acknowledged during his State of the State speech last week that California's present isn't what it once was.

Before they rendezvous with destiny, Californians must confront their stark new reality.

"What everybody is struggling with now is how to set expectations," said Mark Baldassare, president and CEO of the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California.

"The governor is trying to find a way to create expectations and keep a lid on them. And that's tough to do," Baldassare said. "Economically, we're not at a point where we can take care of all of these needs." 'An era of limits'

The booming California of the 74-year-old Brown's youth in San Francisco, or of his first stint as governor in the 1970s, doesn't exist. Then, payrolls in the state were growing at roughly 4 percent a year. Now, more than 1 in every 5 California children lives in poverty. In Fresno County, 35 percent of kids are poor.

[donna]

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