By Chris Reed

Sacramento is still buzzing over a bizarre and obnoxious scandal in which state parks officials hid $54 million while pressing to close 70 parks, and along comes another scandal in which Cal Fire hides millions of dollars while successfully pushing for a new fire-protection “fee,” and what does Gov. Jerry Brown do?

Put the scoop down. “I find it a relatively boring story, to tell you the truth,” Brown told reporters Tuesday.

Brown has been described as brilliant, eccentric,  unique, worldly, weird, etc. But here’s what he’s been since winning passage of Prop. 30 in November: as arrogant as any California politician in a long, long, long time.

The governor dismisses people with sensible criticism of the problem-plagued bullet train project as “defeatists.” Yo, Jerry, does your putdown also hold for the Washington Post editorial page and The Economist, which think the project is nuts?

The governor acts as if temporary sales and income tax hikes have transformed California into a strapping model of robust governance. He completely ignores CalPERS and CalSTRS underfunding, the $10 billion plus the state owes the federal government for borrowing to pay unemployment benefits when the state program went broke, and the fact that another retirement benefit for state employees — health care — is $60 billion-plus underfunded.

Bullying those who don’t parrot his happy talk

California is not on firm ground. Jerry Brown has created a narrative that holds that it is, and he’s gotten journalists from the East Coast to buy the myth. The numbers, however, just don’t add up.

But challenge his narrative of the state being in a new, golden era, and he’ll mock you at a press conference, as he did with Brian Joseph of The Orange County Register. Raise questions about whether the state is as well-governed as he pretends, and he’ll belittle you, as he did the reporters on the Cal Fire scandal by calling their findings “boring.”

He used to be Gov. Moonbeam. Now he’s Gov. Insufferable Know-It-All.

Great, just great.

By Chris Reed

There’s finally some mainstream media coverage of the astounding decision of the Franchise Tax Board to rewrite a tax break and go after profits accumulated by some business owners that date back to 2008. The U-T San Diego story by Chris Cadelago only makes the money grab seem all the more outrageous in that it is depicted as something that was conceived of and executed solely by FTB bureaucrats, without the knowledge or consent of elected officials.

“SACRAMENTO — About 2,000 small business owners and investors across California are being forced to retroactively pay the state four years of assessments totaling $120 million plus interest, based on a decision by the Franchise Tax Board.

“In December, the state agency that administers personal income and corporate taxes ended a nearly 20-year-old tax incentive designed to spur investment in startup companies and small businesses, citing a court ruling. The benefit allowed small business investors who sold their stock at a gain to exclude half the profits from their income taxes. …

“The decision was made at the staff level, not by the three members of the Franchise Tax Board — John Chiang, state controller; Jerome E. Horton, chairman of the Board of Equalization and Ana Matosantos, state finance director.”

The article notes that Sen. Ted Lieu, D-Torrance, and Assemblyman Jeff Gorell, R-Camarillo, are upset with the FTB and may seek a reversal of the ruling, but where’s Jerry Brown?

For more than a year, our governor has sold himself as a critic of bureaucracy and mindless regulation and a champion of a business-friendly state government. He did so again in his State of the State address.

The FTB money grab is an acid test of whether it’s just more Moonbeamian hot air or whether the governor really believes what he says.