Almost after a decade of crippling deficits and spending cuts to social services and education, Gov. Jerry Brown unveiled a balanced budget earlier this month with a projected $1 billion surplus in 2014.
“The deficit is gone,” said Gov. Jerry Brown.
“This is new. This is a breakthrough.”
California faced a $25.4 billion deficit in 2011 while being one of the worst states hit by the Great Recession.
At a time of declining property value and rising unemployment, the Brown administration practiced great fiscal constraint that has largely paid off.
Due to past budget cuts, economic growth and the approval of Proposition 30 by voters in November have all contributed to balancing the budget.
Like his father former Gov. Pat Brown, chief architect of California’s leading public education system in the 1960’s, Gov. Jerry Brown intends to restore the prominence that has largely been tarnished over the years by mounting budget cuts.
On top of the $125 million each from Prop 30 funds for the University of California and California State University systems, Brown has proposed an additional $125 million for each.
However, this is less than what CSU and UC’s asked for in order to dispel the specter of future tuition increases, according SF Chronicle.
Education is one of Brown’s sacred cows and he  has proposed an addition $2.6 billion in school spending and a new formula for how to allocate more funds to low-income schools.
But he intends to remain fiscally responsible in coming budget battles to avoid the pitfalls of his predecessors.
“We have to live within the means we have; otherwise we get to that situation where you get red ink and you go back to cuts,” he said.
 “I want to avoid the booms and the bust, the borrow and the spend, where we make the promise and then we take back.”
Echoing Brown’s commitment to constituencies are his Democratic colleagues who are anxious to restore spending to social services like health care to the poor and disabled.
With Democrats now having a two-thirds majority in the State Assembly and Senate, Brown will have to continue playing the fiscal moderate that has earned him respect from Republicans.
Gov. Brown sits atop of political capital which he intends to use to influence policy over the national debate of government spending and tax revenues.
“I would like to do something that would make California a leader and an example of what America has to do,” Brown said.