Jerry Brown is out with a new ad, which you can view at right, slamming Meg Whitman’s plan to eliminate the state capital gains tax. This tax giveaway for the rich would cost, according to the ad, $5.3 billion. That’s a particularly reckless thing for Whitman to propose, given that the state budget is already in deficit.

But wait, I forgot, deficits only matter when you’re trying to screw working people – they magically don’t matter at all when you’re talking about more tax cuts for the rich.

Tax cuts for the rich haven’t produced job growth and won’t do so here in California. Instead they will force even deeper, crippling cuts to our schools, our health care services, and the other things we need to ensure every Californian enjoys economic security.

Economic growth doesn’t come from tax cuts for the rich. It comes from taxing the rich more in order to help the rest of California find economic security, enabling them to fuel sustainable job and wage growth.

Brown understands this. Whitman doesn’t – because she doesn’t care. Her goal is to use the governor’s office to destroy government in order to give more money and power to the rich. The capital gains tax cut alone would also have the benefit of, over several years, likely paying back the cost of Whitman’s gubernatorial campaign.

We at Calitics have been beating the drum for months that Whitman’s economic and tax plans will cause the recession to get worse and benefit nobody except the rich. So it’s good to see Jerry Brown making that argument as well. As he rallies in the polls, now is exactly the right time to hit Whitman by showing her tax and budget plans make no sense for California.