Jerry Brown yells ‘stop’ as Democrats demand more

Barack Obama and Jerry Brown may be the two most popular Democratic politicians of the modern era. Both were elected twice by convincing margins and both maintain exceptionally solid public approval ratings. But it would be difficult to overstate the tremendous differences between the two men in terms of demeanor, personality, and their approaches to leadership, a contrast laid bare during their respective high-profile public appearances last week.

On Tuesday night, of course, Obama bid farewell to the nation he had led for eight years, employing the soaring rhetoric and grand aspirational language that has been the hallmark of his career on the national stage since addressing the Democratic National Convention in 2004.

Seven hours earlier, Brown met with California reporters to outline his budget proposal for the upcoming fiscal year. As his been the case throughout his decades of public office, Brown was circumspect, terse and somewhat morose.

“America is a better, stronger place than it was when we started,” Obama said.

“The trajectory of revenue growth is declining,” Brown said.

“Yes we can,” Obama said. “Yes we did.”

“It’s going to be a rough ride,” Brown said.

To be fair, the two men had vastly different goals to achieve that day. Obama was offering a valedictory on his historic eight years in office. Brown had the much more prosaic task of explaining how he intended to balance revenues and expenditures. And voters tend to look to their presidents for inspiration, while they regard their governors as mechanics who are supposed to focus on the nuts-and-bolts of the public sector.

But the remarks that Obama and Brown offered were still accurate reflections of the way that they have approached their roles as public communicators over the course of their careers. Obama sees the glass as half full; Brown warns that it is half empty. Obama sees the doughnut; Brown sees the hole. Obama promises “change you can believe in”; Brown tells you “get off my lawn.”

Ever since returning to the governor’s office in 2011, Brown has clearly enjoyed playing the role of curmudgeon in chief. He sees a significant part of his job to rein in the natural exuberance of the Democrats in the Legislature, nowhere more noticeably than in his efforts to keep the state’s budget in balance by resisting their ongoing demands for increasing spending for a range of government programs. His budget proposal last week was no exception to this approach, slowing growth in public education spending and cutting programs for health care, social services and college tuition subsidies.

There were exceptions to Brown’s parsimony, as he continues to prioritize funding for high-speed rail, for the “twin tunnels” water conveyance system and climate-change programs. But for the most part, legislative Democrats reacted with the same impatient combination of deference and exasperation that teenagers display toward their parents when facing an early curfew. They know that they are largely dependent on Brown, but they want to spend more.

They may soon get their chance.

Next year, California voters will select Brown’s replacement. While the contrast between this governor and the next one will not be nearly as extreme as that between Obama and Donald Trump, it appears that the candidates jockeying to take Brown’s place are unlikely to be as tightfisted in their approach to budgeting and much more willing to accede to the spending demands of their party’s base.

Some of those candidates — Gavin Newsom, John Chiang and Antonio Villaraigosa — can all point to examples of fiscal prudence and caution in their own political histories. But none of them comes to the table with Brown’s decades of trademark stinginess, and they will all be squeezed by Democratic constituencies throughout the campaign to commit to much more generous support for each group’s budgetary priorities.

These pressures will be even more intense in the wake of last year’s election, when the populist uprising from the party’s progressive base brought a septuagenarian socialist to within a hair’s-breadth of the Democratic presidential nomination. At last weekend’s local party caucuses, supporters of Bernie Sanders and other like-minded activists won large majorities of the delegate elections for hundreds of seats on the state Democratic Central Committee. While voters, not delegates, will select California’s next governor, last weekend’s decisive progressive victories make it clear that fiscal rectitude might not be the ideal message for a candidate seeking the support of party volunteers, donors and organizers.

In the meantime, though, Brown remains in Sacramento for two last budget cycles, facing declining tax revenue, growing deficits and looming Trumpian reductions in federal assistance. This budget presentation was the first scene of Jerry Brown’s last act, in which he stands athwart history yelling “stop” at a time when no one else is inclined to do so.