Antonio is still a favorite to be the next governor, so this is a unique opportunity to see how he’d respond to a budget crisis:

Faced with a budget shortfall that has doubled in three months, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa called Monday for paring city spending by suspending most hiring, asking thousands of workers to take unpaid furloughs and selling vacant fire stations […]

Despite the troubling financial situation, Villaraigosa pledged to continue his 1,000-officer expansion of the Los Angeles Police Department — an effort he called key to attracting business, even if it means cutting other services such as street paving and graffiti removal.

“My priority has got to be public safety,” Villaraigosa said at a City Hall news conference. “Keeping the city safe is the answer to how we support revenues.”

Villaraigosa outlined $35 million in cuts as he made a pitch for Proposition S, a telephone users utility tax that is expected to generate $243 million annually. Voters will decide the issue next Tuesday, and the mayor has been arguing that the city will have to slash public safety services if the measure fails.

So, fairly flat taxes to fund public safety (which is among the bigger expenditures for a mayor), a threat to cut public safety if it fails, and cuts across the board beyond that.  It’s not perfect to apply this to what he would do in the Governor’s chair, because the state obviously has a far better opportunity to raise revenue.  But it’s food for thought.