California is confronting a budget crisis after years of spending beyond its means. The governor promises to remedy the problem "without flinching" and without sacrificing essential services or narrowing "our vision for California."

Sound familiar? Those are the words of another governor -- Pat Brown, a Democrat who led the state into its golden era of growth.

Four decades later, Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger hopes to do the same, pledging to keep the state's utopian promise alive amid a $12 billion shortfall. The native Austrian, who arrived in California in 1968, is following a bipartisan tradition of modern-day politicians, such as former Attorney General Dan Lungren and Gov. Gray Davis, who have romanticized Brown's era.

But Schwarzenegger's aim to "renew" the California dream, as he put it in his first speech to the Legislature, is no easy task. The definition of the dream has shifted over the years, reflecting the state's complex evolution, and Schwarzenegger's powers to act are constrained in ways Brown's were not. As Schwarzenegger tries to balance the budget without raising taxes, California's changed landscape makes it harder to convert rhetoric into reality.

During Brown's tenure from 1959 to 1967, California was known for its model schools, superb highways and water delivery. The $100 million deficit he confronted that first year was 7 percent of a $1.4 billion general fund budget.

Since then the state's population has more than doubled, largely driven by immigration from Mexico and Asia. Demand for social services has soared, while ballot measures such as tax-cutting Proposition 13 have crimped the state's ability to respond. This year's shortfall represents 16 percent of the $76 billion general fund budget.

"More money, more people, more problems. It's a different world," said Brown's son, Jerry, the current mayor of Oakland, who was governor from 1975 to 1983.

As Schwarzenegger prepares to unveil his revised budget plan Thursday, schools, roads and water -- three linchpins of Brown's vision for the state -- highlight how much California has changed.

To historian and retired state librarian Kevin Starr, Californians need to rethink what services the state should offer and how much taxpayers are willing to pay. The state's highways are among the worst in the nation, the water supply is unsustainable and California's most prestigious university system is turning away qualified students for the first time in 44 years.

Expectations have changed, too. Where Brown promised equal access to adequate housing, for example, now people clamor for affordable housing.

"I'm not claiming the dream ever came for free; somebody was always picking up the tab," Starr said. "Once the governor can deal with the immediate problems, he is going to have to start a dialogue with the people."

Schwarzenegger, like Brown, envisions a robust economy that attracts new businesses and jobs. But if Brown's strategy was to invest public money in 11 college campuses, 1,000 miles of highway and an ambitious water project, Schwarzenegger is counting on private investment. He has vowed to be the state's "job czar," selling California to the world.

State government will do its part too, largely by making it easier to do business here. This includes reforming the workers' compensation system and lowering energy costs.

"I did not seek this job to cut, but to build," Schwarzenegger said in his State of the State address in January. "I did not seek this job to preside over the decline of a dream, but to renew it."

Education: 'Open door' to all was state's '60s vow

In 1960, the state's widely admired Master Plan for Higher Education established the principle that all Californians would have access to high-quality public universities and colleges. It created the three-tracked system of the University of California, the California State University and community colleges.

"In the history of the university we've never turned away a qualified student from the state of California; I hope we never do. It will be a sad day when that happens," former University of California President Clark Kerr, the architect of the plan, said at a 1967 news conference.

"An open door for all the able young people, and, I want to say, of all races."

Marian Gade, Kerr's longtime research assistant, said he would be "devastated" by the governor's January budget proposals.

To help narrow the shortfall, Schwarzenegger turned to the state's universities. He proposed raising fees 10 percent for undergraduates and 40 percent for graduate students, and reducing financial aid.

At the governor's suggestion, UC and CSU are asking 10 percent of incoming freshmen to first attend a community college. Students who accept the offer are guaranteed free tuition at a community college and a spot at a university for junior year. Many high school seniors feel the state is breaking its historic promise.

Schwarzenegger's budget includes funding for a new UC campus in Merced, and $125 million to help community colleges absorb more students. But some fear the influx of new students intending to transfer will crowd out the low-income students community colleges typically serve.

Policy experts also note that Schwarzenegger's proposal to raise fees while slicing financial aid undermines the state's commitment to make schools accessible.

Fees should increase in flush times when families can afford it, said Patrick Callan, president of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education in San Jose.

But Kerr's vision lives on despite tough budget times. Even with Schwarzenegger's proposed fee increases, California schools are still a good deal compared with their counterparts around the country.

CSU students would pay an average of $2,777, still less than students at all 15 other schools the California Postsecondary Education Commission uses for comparison. UC students would pay about $6,030, 10 percent lower than the average at comparable public universities.

The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office, which advises the Legislature, also found that UC and CSU could stay true to the state's promise despite Schwarzenegger's proposal to shrink enrollment if they tightened admissions standards.

An LAO report earlier this year found that UC and CSU accept students from a pool of applicants beyond the top 12.5 percent and 33.3 percent, respectively, of high school graduates envisioned in the plan, because they are taking students who do not meet minimum academic standards.

"Even if we are above 12.5 percent, it should be viewed as a positive indicator," said Hanan Eisenman, a UC spokesman, who added that UC awaits updated admissions statistics. "We've set high standards and an increasing number of students have met those."

Transportation: Freeways were seen as key to prosperity

The standard Pat Brown set for highway construction -- more than 1,000 miles during his tenure -- was unprecedented. Those days are long gone.

"There isn't enough money in our wildest dreams to do what we did during those years," said Starr, who has written a series of books on the California dream. "That's like saying we're going to rebuild the pyramids."

Brown had the luxury of starting with a clean slate, free from modern environmental regulations, and the state was flush with gas-tax revenue.

He also was buoyed by the pro-growth spirit of the day. One of Brown's high points was in 1962, when the finance department announced that California was on course to surpass New York as the most populous state.

"The mood of that era helped Brown foster a lot of growth and to build all the infrastructure for which he is remembered," said journalist Ethan Rarick, the author of a book on Pat Brown to be published in January. "People were convinced freeways were the way to prosperity."

Now, California has some of the roughest roads in the country. A 2002 study by a federal highway agency found 26 percent of California's roads were unacceptable to drivers, a percentage second only to Massachusetts. In San Jose and Los Angeles, drivers pay an extra $700 a year in car maintenance because of rough roads, compared with the national average of $396, according to the nonprofit Road Information Project.

Ironically, some blame Brown's son, Jerry, for starting the slide in the 1970s, when gas-tax revenues dipped. Jerry Brown's mantra of "lower expectations" translated into scrapped projects and hundreds of Caltrans layoffs.

Gas-tax revenue, the major source of transportation funding, has not kept pace with inflation or rising construction costs. And since 2001, the Legislature and the governor have raided $2.2 billion from special funds that are supposed to flow to highway projects.

Schwarzenegger has signaled he will continue that trend by proposing to siphon off an additional $2 billion.

Both business groups and Republican legislators are calling on the governor to put any extra money that emerges during budget talks back into transportation.

"The practice has been to treat the state highway program as a piggy bank," said Dennis Oliver of the Alliance for California Jobs.

Water: Future projects have yet to emerge

Schwarzenegger has yet to weigh in on a third key priority for Brown -- water.

Much of California is arid, averaging about 15 inches of rain a year, and does not have enough water to sustain the state's population.

In 1960, Brown pushed through a far-reaching project to pump snowpack from the Sierra Nevada 444 miles to Central Valley farms, the Bay Area and Southern California. The $1.75 billion bond voters narrowly approved for the series of dams and canals was the largest in history.

That Schwarzenegger has said little about water in his first six months is not surprising, given the task of repairing the state's finances. But Rodney Smith, an economist who publishes the newsletter Water Strategist, urged the governor to view water in terms of economics.

"If we don't have a reliable water supply, that will be the greatest overburdening of business, because growth as we know it will stop," Smith said.

Boosting the state's water supply today is more complicated. Most of the state's wild rivers have been dammed, and Schwarzenegger, unlike Brown, must follow environmental laws that protect endangered species.

And now a historic drought on the Colorado River threatens to reduce some of the state's supply.

There were signs last week that the Schwarzenegger administration is making progress with part of a long-term water plan recommended by CalFed, a state and federal partnership.

The 30-year plan would increase the state's water supply and restore the environmental health of the San Francisco Bay and the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.

"We are so far beyond the idea that any single project or program will fix our water issues," Lester Snow, director of the Water Resources Department, told water officials at a conference last week. High-quality, reliable water, Snow said, is part of the administration's plan to "rebuild California and take it into the future."

As Schwarzenegger has become more immersed in the reality of governing, his language has become less flowery and more pragmatic.

Speaking to a business group in Sacramento last week, Schwarzenegger summed up the situation this way:

"That's what we are trying to do here: Cut and cut and cut and make sure that we're healthy as a state and that our public sector doesn't go out of control."

"Because that's what they want over there at the Capitol, some of those legislators," he said. "That's what they want, to make it grow and grow so that the guy that carries it -- which is the private sector -- will stumble and stumble, and he'll never make it. But it will not happen under this leadership, let me tell you, because we will make the cuts. We will make the cuts and we will not increase the taxes; that is for sure. That is for sure."