Brown’s budget solution: ‘Lock ‘em up inside the chambers’

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Although Democratic gubernatorial nominee Jerry Brown says fixing California’s budget crisis is the top priority facing the state’s next chief executive, he stuck to generalities Thursday when asked how he would solve the problem.

“I’m going to start even before I’m sworn in to get working on the budget, get it out to the public, let the controversy settle in and try to shape it up to just a few points,” he told KGO-AM (810) in San Francisco. “We’ll try to go to the people and get them to break the gridlock.”

Asked for specifics, Brown demurred: “I’d say all new ideas, let’s get ‘em out now because new ideas always have unintended implications that take a while to figure out.”

Republican rival Meg Whitman, the billionaire former chief executive of EBay, has characterized Brown as a man without a plan.

Brown, a former two-term governor and current attorney general, touted his political resume and took a swipe at Whitman -- and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

“I’ve done eight budgets before,” he said. “We’re in a maximum state of crisis here, and it’s not a time for someone saying, ‘Hey, let’s train on the job.’ We’ve been kinda trying that.”

Brown said term limits had hobbled the legislative process, and he encouraged legislators to work out their differences. What would he do to help the process along?

“Right now they are in a crisis. They gotta meet nonstop,” he said. “I would lock ‘em up inside the chambers and not let em out until they come up with a result.”

-- Michael J. Mishak in Sacramento