Jerry's back!

Meanwhile, his predecessor and fellow Democrat Jerry Brown poked a hole in Newsom’s budget bubble by calling the state’s spending “not sustainable” in an interview with NBC News Los Angeles. Brown also worried out loud about the federal government going into debt and spending “wildly.”

“We need a more frugal, sustainable, prudent way of doing business. I would predict, certainly within two years, we’re going to see fiscal stress,” he said — a prediction potentially reinforced by figures released Tuesday by the U.S. Labor Department. The Consumer Price Index, a key measure of inflation, jumped 5.4% in the year through June — marking the biggest rise since 2008.

With a few comments, he has raised the political IQ about twenty points.