UPDATE: Brown's Budget Calls On More Cuts, New Taxes

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) – Gov. Jerry Brown introduced his 2012-13 budget proposal Thursday at a news conference at the Capitol, and again painted a dire picture of California's fiscal landscape over the next few years.

Brown's proposed budget forecasts a $9.2 billion deficit through June 2013 despite some $4 billion in cuts to services such as welfare, Medi-Cal, childcare and to public education. Brown said welfare would be cut by $1.5 billion, bringing payments down to 1980s levels for recipients. Public education would take a $544 million hit under his proposal.

The budget is also contingent on voters passing tax increases in a November ballot initiative that Brown is counting on to generate $7 billion annually in revenues. If the tax initiatives aren't passed, $5 billion in trigger cuts would kick in, chiefly with an additional $4.8 billion hit to public education.

To address California's ongoing shortfall, Brown has proposed raising the income tax on those who earn $250,000 or more a year and boosting the state sales tax by a half cent.

"We're making some really painful cuts," Brown said. "Cuts are never nice, because government does a lot of good things. But we'll have the tax measure proposal, we'll have some cuts, and then we'll have some trigger cuts in the event that the tax measure does not succeed."

The state has already enacted $1 billion in trigger cuts from the current budget across a wide array of state programs, including higher education, busing for K-12 students and services for the disabled. Those midyear cuts were necessary because tax revenue was coming in much lower than Brown and Democratic lawmakers had anticipated when they passed the budget last summer.

"We have to hold the line on spending and make the tough cuts," Brown said.

The news conference was moved up to 2:30 at the state Capitol instead of being held next Tuesday after it was inadvertently posted online.

Republicans denounced the budget's call for new taxes and Democrats criticized the cuts to services, making for what's likely another long fight over the coming months.