HIGH-SPEED TRAIN TO NOWHERE: Could California be seeing the onset of a recession?

Brown attaches his admonishments to the budgets he proposes to the Legislature – the initial one in January and a revised version four months later.

Brown’s latest, issued last May, cited uncertainty about turmoil in the national government, urged legislators to “plan for and save for tougher budget times ahead,” and added:

“By the time the budget is enacted in June, the economy will have finished its eighth year of expansion – only two years shorter than the longest recovery since World War II. A recession at some point is inevitable.”

It’s certain that Brown will renew his warning next month. Implicitly, he may hope that the inevitable recession he envisions will occur once his final term as governor ends in January, 2019, because it would, his own financial advisers believe, have a devastating effect on the state budget.

Everybody sees it coming, but when it does, those in charge of the state budget will find it all quite unexpected.