PAYING FOR CALIFORNIA

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is certainly not the first California governor to deal with budget issues. So did Earl Warren, Pat Brown, Ronald Reagan and Pete Wilson. The following four articles, commissioned by California Forward, a bipartisan group that seeks reform of the state budget process, show how these former governors balanced the books.

June 15, 2008

Pete Wilson: the negotiator

After the Cold War ended and the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, California's aerospace-and-defense-heavy economy took a nose dive. One result was that, in 1991, Gov. Pete Wilson faced the worst budget shortfall in the state's history.

June 15, 2008

Pat Brown: the 'big-government man'

When Pat Brown took office in 1959, California's postwar population boom was roaring along full-throttle. The state was adding half a million people a year, and Brown had run for governor as the man who would provide for the multitudes.

June 15, 2008

Earl Warren: the independent

It is both difficult and easy to imagine how Gov. Earl Warren would address California's present budget troubles -- difficult because Warren governed in a period of extraordinary growth, allowing him to preside over a vast expansion of state services without many setbacks; easy because few of Warren's successors have more closely emulated his leadership than the current occupant of the office.

June 15, 2008

Ronald Reagan: the pragmatist

The tipoff that Gov. Ronald Reagan had a streak of pragmatism in him came soon after his inaugural speech on Jan. 2, 1967, in which he promised to "squeeze, cut and trim" the cost of state government to close a significant budget gap. Two days later, however, he told aides that all the cutting and trimming in the world might not suffice. A tax increase could be necessary, Reagan said, and, if so, he didn't want to wait "until everyone forgets that we did not cause the problem -- we only inherited it."

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