Brown Proposes $8.3 Billion in Cuts for California LOS ANGELES - Struggling to contain mounting state budget shortfalls, Gov. Jerry Brown on Monday proposed $8.3 billion in spending cuts, including slashing state employees pay and spending on social programs and prisons. He warned that California would have to impose another $6 billion in cuts on public schools and higher education if voters fail to improve his initiative this fall to raise sales and income taxes. Mr. Brown said the state was facing an estimated $15.7 billion shortfall, up from $9.2 billion in January. He blamed the worsening state budget situation on the slide in California's economy, which has led to less revenues than he had projected just last year, and court decisions preventing the state from imposing cuts voted on this year. "I don't like making additional cuts, and I recognize the impact they have on Californians," Mr. Brown said in releasing his budget plan. They are difficult - but necessary - in order to get us back on firm fiscal footing until California fully recovers from the global economic recession. Even as he proposed cuts, Mr. Brown proposed a 16 percent increase in funding for public schools. But he said they were contingent on voters approving a quarter-cent hike in the sales tax and an income tax surcharge on wealthy voters this year, hardly a sure thing. For Mr. Brown, the announcement on Monday was a return to a problem that has shadowed his tenure since he took office in January 2011 and that he had hoped he had dispensed with in the budget passed last year. Instead, he found himself again insisting on the need for deep cuts that seem likely to create a clash with Democratic lawmakers. "The fact is, California has been living beyond its means," Mr. Brown said in Sacramento before flying here for a second news conference detailing the plan. The United States of America and its federal government has been living beyond its means. Well, there has to be a balance and a day of reckoning. This is a day of reckoning, and we have to take the medicine. Mr. Brown heatedly denied the suggestion that he - repeating the practices of his predecessors - had underestimated revenues in pushing through a budget, describing that a "gotcha" question. He also defended his decision to rely on about $2.5 billion in one-time saving in this plan, saying they were not the kinds of gimmicks he denounced when running for office, but rather prudent ways of dealing with one-time costs the state is facing Whatever the reason, the size of the shortfall Mr. Brown is now estimating is beginning to approach the $26 billion shortfall he inherited upon taking office, and had boasted of largely eliminating. With or without the tax increases, the cuts promise to be intense, particularly for a state that has absorbed wave after wave of spending cuts. Mr. Brown said he would propose a 5 percent reduction in compensation for state employees by imposing furloughs and a four-day workweek. His budget includes cuts in spending on health care programs for the elderly and the poor, for prisons and corrections and for development projects. If the tax increases are not passed, he said, another $6 billion or so in cuts would be imposed on schools and on the state's higher education program. He suggested that, at the very least, that would result in a shortening of the school year. Mr. Brown, a Democrat, said he expected negotiations with Democratic leaders in the Legislature to be very difficult; in January, they rejected his proposal to begin making cuts when the $9.2 billion deficit was first projected. But, he argued, it was impossible to delay any longer. "What government does is good," said Mr. Brown. And a lot of Democratic legislators see the good and they are really troubled by cutting back on something basic that is good. But the fact is, we are in a democratic society. We have so much money from the people. And we have so much spending. We can be out of alignment for a while. But now, given the decade of fiscal disconnect, I've committed to right the ship of state and getting it into balance.