Hold your horses on those Brown budget analyses

Yeah, I know it's tempting to dig into the governor's 170+ page proposal and leap to all sorts of conclusions. But budgets should never to be taken seriously at such an early stage - most especially this budget. The legislature won't begin looking at cuts for at least several months because the revenue outlook might change. Hey, the economy is in transition - in a good way - and it's possible that the state will have more money to work with than what's being projected. Given the gravity of the recommended cuts - including MediCal and CalWORKs, the state's work-for-welfare program - you can be sure lawmakers will be waiting as long as possible before pulling the trigger. The other imponderable, of course, is the politics connected to Brown's tax hike initiative. As Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg pointed out, "It's a January budget, and a ... June 15 budget, by definition, historically looks nothing like a January budget."

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