Video expose! Jerry Brown admits he had no master plan the last time he was governor

Much has been made in recent weeks over the videotaped late-night verbal indiscretions of a certain Republican senatorial candidate from Delaware, who claims to have dabbled in idle witchcraft, communed with a deity and been opposed to a certain private pastime.

Meanwhile, on the left coast, the ubiquitous online provoacteur Andrew Breitbart has uncovered a videotape of a certain Democrat named Jerry Brown, who re-aspires to be governor of the nation's most populous state. The 72-year-old seeks a third term as governor, 27 years after his first two expired back when the big hit movies were "American Graffiti" and "Jesus Christ Superstar."

Here's a 1992 videotape of a CNN interview with Brown in which he admits he lied during his first gubernatorial campaign:

"It’s all a lie," Brown says. "You’re pretending there’s a plan ....

Frank Sesno: What did you lie about?

Brown: You run for office and the assumption is "Oh, I know what to do." You don’t. I didn’t have a plan for California. Clinton doesn’t have a plan. Bush doesn’t have a plan .... You say you’re going to lower taxes, you’re going to put people to work, you’re gonna improve the schools, you’re going to stop crime … crime is up, schools are worse, taxes are higher. I mean, be real!"

Now here's a recent videotape of Brown and his Republican opponent Meg Whitman describing their plans to right the financially troubled state.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Comments

[CI]

Brown was being honest -when you suddenly step in to take control of the biggest state or biggest country (economically), of course all your goals and slogans must be fit into the countless constantly arising nuances. Any honest politician would say so. Few are honest. Brown is.

And his experience is part of why people are now supporting him -because they feel he'll be able to deal with whatever typical stuff comes from the legislature, etc. All the politicians I have worked with would privately admit what Brown said.

[ggswede]

What else is new ?He still doesn't have a plan.And if the people of Ca. elect him again,I wonder what else he'll mess-up ?

[marry J]

shes not the most polished. But we need someone to logically lead the state, not politically laed the state.

Thats the problem, politics currpts leadership.

Meg is a logical leader, not a politican. My vote is for her!

[maliheh]

It’s all a lie," video of Brown was fabricated and distorted to smear jerry brown..he never said that..andrew breitbart is a master at these sort of tactics

[Victor]

@maliheh: if he didn't say that, then what did he say?

[April]

Anyone that votes for Brown is a complete idiot. He was a screw up the first time, and past behavior and is almost always an indicator of future behavior. Wake up Californians! Your state is almost bankrupt as it is -- do you want a far leftist at the helm?!? Obama has taught liberals NOTHING! (Note: Obama is a disaster!)

[Stan Sokolow]

If you think Brown has a record of spending California into this mess, read more about Jerry Brown's record at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Brown :

Upon taking office, Brown gained a reputation as a fiscal conservative. The American Conservative [a conservative magazine started by Patrick Buchanan and others] later noted he was "much more of a fiscal conservative than Governor Reagan." His fiscal restraint resulted in one of the biggest budget surpluses in state history, roughly $5 billion. For his personal life, Brown refused many of the privileges and perks of the office, forgoing the newly constructed governor's residence and instead renting a modest apartment at the corner of 14th and N Streets, adjacent to Capitol Park in downtown Sacramento. Instead of riding as a passenger in a chauffeured limousine as previous governors had done, Brown drove to work in a Plymouth Satellite sedan.

It was the passage of Proposition 13 by the public, which Brown opposed, that caused the $5 billion surplus to disappear. Propositions can't be vetoed by the governor, so he and California government were stuck with it.

When Proposition 13 passed in June of 1978, he heavily cut state spending and, along with the Legislature, spent much of the $5 billion surplus to meet the proposition's requirements and help offset the revenue losses which made cities, counties and schools more dependent on the state. His actions in response to the proposition earned him praise from Proposition 13 author Howard Jarvis who went as far to make a television commercial for Brown just before his successful reelection bid in 1978.

Brown supported a balanced budget amendment. He proposed a 2-tier government pension system to get California out of the burden of excessively generous public pensions, putting new hires on a more austere track than existing workers. The Legislature didn't enact that reform. The public pension rules used to look back at the last 3 years of salary. Long after Brown was out of the Governor seat, the rule was changed to look only at the last year of work, pumping up compensation by allowing deferred vacation pay and other non-salary perks to be added as final-year compensation, causing bloated pensions for the rest of that employees life.

Read about how the California public pension system got screwed up here: http://www.claremont.org/projects/pageid.2653/default.asp. It says:
"Then in 1999, the legislature and Governor Gray Davis authorized a large increase in the pension formulas for state employees. Like the final-year policy enacted nine years previously, Senate Bill 400 was a bipartisan blunder. It passed by votes of 39-0 in the Senate and 70-7 in the Assembly." The final-year-rule blunder was made in 1990. Brown was governor in 1975 to 1983, so this excessively generous pension system was not created on his watch. He never would have supported it.

Brown is not in the pocket of the unions. He has opposed them in the past.

Meg Whitman lies about Brown's fiscal record.