Dan Walters' Capitol Q&A

Question: While watching Gov. Schwarzenegger's State of the State address, I got to thinking back to covering Gov. Jerry Brown in 1977-78-79 and wondering what he said 30 years ago. Couldn't find his 1978 State of the State online, but did note that he ended up cutting the budget six months later due to Prop. 13. The search turned up Ron Roach's 1998 look back at Gov. Wilson's approach to deficits, which included raising taxes on the rich. How have our governor's approached deficits, and how did it all work out?
-- Ted Langdell, Marysville

Answer: Wilson did twist Republican legislators' arms to enact a big tax increase, emulating, albeit on a smaller scale, what Republican Govs. Ronald Reagan and George Deukmejian had done when they inherited budget gaps. But Wilson later recanted, saying that he regretted raising taxes. Democrat Jerry Brown actually cut state taxes during his eight-year term, responding to the anti-tax fervor of Proposition 13, but that created the deficit that Deukmejian later inherited. Eventually, Deukmejian presided over a one-time tax rebate when state revenues spiked upwards in the mid-1980s.
--Dan Walters