With the state budget balanced for the first time in years, Gov. Jerry Brown is roaring that "California is back," painting a rosier future for California with gauzy predictions of its "rendezvous with destiny."

But beneath the governor's flowery evocations of "bold pioneers" who followed "every failure with an even greater success," Brown tacitly acknowledged during his State of the State speech last week that California's present isn't what it once was.

Before they rendezvous with destiny, Californians must confront their stark new reality.

"What everybody is struggling with now is how to set expectations," said Mark Baldassare, president and CEO of the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California.

Read more at the SF Chronicle