GOP lawmaker tears up Jerry Brown’s budget. Literally.

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1.18.11 Asm. Donnelly / Budget Shreding from CA Assembly GOP on Vimeo.

Republican Assemblyman Tim Donnelly doesn’t much care for Gov. Jerry Brown’s budget, and he is ripping apart the plan in dramatic fashion –- on camera.

The freshman lawmaker from San Bernardino, who ran on the slogan “send a Minuteman to Sacramento,” has filmed a video of himself tearing up Brown’s budget proposal and feeding portions of it through a paper shredder.

He gets started by criticizing spending on the California Air Resources Board, which is charged with implementing the state’s climate-change law.

“They’re trying to solve the global warming problem, if you still believe in that,” says Donnelly, wearing a blue shirt, red tie and buttoned-up suit. He grimaces as he yanks the relevant section out of Brown’s budget and feeds it through the shredder labeled “Government Waste.”

He also wants to cut back on pensions for UC executives, the state’s unemployment department (“They’re basically in charge of creating jobs in California.... How’s that going for you?”) and the prisons budget, in particular spending on illegal immigrant inmates.

But he acknowledges that “I can’t shred this entire section here.”

Donnelly calls the video “cutting government in action.” He has posted it on the home page of his official Assembly website.

-- Shane Goldmacher in Sacramento