*Brown's budget: Pass those tax increases or else...

Or else he'll propose making $4.8 billion in cuts to public schools. Other than that, the news is actually pretty good, with a projected budget deficit of $9.2 billion - considerably more manageable than the $26.6 billion shortfall the legislature had to deal with during the current fiscal year. From AP:

To address California's ongoing shortfall, Brown has proposed raising the income tax on those who earn $250,000 or more a year and boosting the state sales tax by a half cent. He is trying to gather support for a November ballot initiative. If voters reject those tax increases, Brown's budget says he will call for an automatic cut of $4.8 billion from public education. That is the equal to three weeks of school. Earlier Thursday, Brown told reporters "there'll be a lot of cuts" if his initiative fails. "Cuts are never nice, because government does a lot of good things. But we'll have the tax measure proposal, we'll have some cuts, and then we'll have some trigger cuts in the event that the tax measure does not succeed," he said.

The budget is being released several days earlier than scheduled because it was mistakenly posted online. The governor is planning a news conference in a few minutes.

*Update: Brown insists that the proposed cuts in education is not being used as a leverage to prompt voters to approve his tax increases. Roughly 40 percent of state expenditures come from public education. Also on the chopping block: Nearly $1.4 billion in welfare and child care aid.

From Capitol Alert:

"With the tax program, we will eliminate the budget deficit finally, after years of kicking the can down the road," Brown said. With or without the taxes, Brown is calling for a base level of $4.2 billion in cuts, including the $946 million to welfare-to-work and $446 million to subsidized child care. He also would save $842 million in Medi-Cal by moving recipients into managed care plans. The welfare cut would save money largely by cutting welfare for parents who don't meet work requirements after 24 months, compared to 48 months now.