Fiscal Restraint Is Brown’s Thing. Will It Follow Him Into Retirement?

It’s a problem most governments can only dream of: too much money. But California — riding the wave of a booming economy — is swimming in a surplus: $8.98 billion as of last week.

Suddenly, the days of multibillion-dollar deficits and anguished debates about what to cut have given way to a quandary over what to do with all this money. In the process, interesting questions have emerged about what happens after Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, leaves office.

Brown, unlike many Democrats in Sacramento, has been a fiscal moderate. Aware of the historical gyrations in revenue collections, he regularly insists on building up a rainy-day fund so the state has a financial buffer to get it through the next inevitable recession.

In this case, $2.6 billion went to the fund, bringing it to $15 billion. “This is a time to save for our future,” Brown told reporters in unveiling his latest plans, “not to make pricey promises we can’t keep.”

There has been grumbling among Democrats, who watched as the state slashed social programs over the years and now want to restore some of them. Brown proposed spending $359 million to help cities here deal with the homeless crisis, but that sum stands in stark contrast to the $1.5 billion that the cities had asked for.

Republicans view the surplus as evidence that California is overtaxing citizens: They want the money returned.

When Brown leaves, the big question is whether the fiscal prudence will follow him to his retirement ranch once one of the two likely Democrats seeking to replace him — Gavin Newsom, the lieutenant governor, and Antonio Villaraigosa, the former mayor of Los Angeles — takes office. (There is little chance a Republican will win.)

Here’s one interesting take: Raphael J. Sonenshein, executive director of the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs at California State University, Los Angeles, said that Brown had managed to float above these political pressures because his Democratic base gave him leeway and Republicans considered him friendlier than most Democrats.

“The change after Jerry leaves won’t be that individual candidates might or might not hold the line against either spending or tax cuts,” Sonenshein said, “it’s whether they would be able to rise above the pressures within their parties.

“And they might argue that Jerry overdid it.”