Gov. Jerry Brown is betting that the light he plans to shed on the state budget will produce some heat.

Brown will soon launch a don’t-make-me-do-it budget tour, hoping that speaking bluntly in public will help do what negotiating in private has failed to do so far: convince a few Republicans to let the people decide whether to extend temporary state taxes. Otherwise, he says he’ll give the Legislature an all-cuts budget, slashing spending by $26.6 billion, including the $11.2 billion cut so far.

His staff haven’t released his itinerary yet, but Brown said Tuesday he’ll be in Orange County on Saturday at a California Cadet Corps event. Another stop will be Riverside County, home of Senate Minority Leader Bob Dutton and of Bill Emmerson, one of five Republican senators Brown was negotiating with before the governor declared the talks futile and broke them off last week, ending plans to put tax extensions before voters in June.

Although Emmerson blamed Brown’s union allies for standing in the way of a deal over pension reform and a spending cap that could have won his vote, he was conciliatory in an op-ed Monday in the Riverside Press-Enterprise: “I’m disappointed the governor halted our negotiations and I know he is also,” he wrote. “I have only the highest regard for Brown and I know for a fact that he shares my belief that meaningful reforms will return California to its glory.”

Maybe Brown will return the compliment or maybe he’s hoping that blunt talk about an all-cuts budget will anger Emmerson’s constituents and prod him back to negotiations.

Brown auditioned his message Tuesday to the California Medical Association – an audience that doesn’t faint over talk of blood. And there will be no avoiding arteries if the state has to cut another $14 billion, so it’s time Brown got graphic about the details. But, at least with the docs, he remained upbeat about the prognosis: “Breakdowns,” he said, “do lead to breakthroughs. It’s just a matter of patience and a certain degree of creativity.”

To make it easier for Democrats to cast uncomfortable votes, Brown hasn’t talked at length about the effects of the painful cuts that Democrats have already passed – on community colleges and the universities and on children’s health care and day care. It’s now time to do that, too.

Brown won’t release his revised budget until May, but he needs to indicate clearly what he has in mind. Certainly, school districts and college students deserve to know.

Community colleges Chancellor Jack Scott said Tuesday that the colleges would turn away 400,000 students next year if a failure to extend taxes leads to predicted deep cuts.

Having taken disproportionately higher cuts the past three years, K-12 schools would be basically held harmless if $9 billion in temporary taxes are extended. But if not, they will face at least $2 billion less in funding, because a cut in total state revenue will lower the minimum Proposition 98 obligation to K-12 schools. The Legislative Analyst’s Office, assuming all state services would be reduced the same percentage and Prop 98 would be suspended, predicted that schools could lose as much as $4.5 billion – a drop of 9 percent and $755 per student, bringing the total cut in straight dollars since 2007-08 to 20 percent.

If that’s what he has in mind, Brown should say it, so parents will know what the impact might be, in terms of teachers laid off, programs eliminated, and perhaps the school year shortened. Then they  can tell (or yell at)  legislators what they think of that.

Brown was counting on persuading two Republicans each in the Assembly and Senate for the two-thirds majority needed to put the tax extensions on the June ballot. He is also counting on legislators to eliminate the state’s 400 redevelopment agencies, with an immediate savings of $1.7 billion that the governor would use next year to reimburse local governments for services that the state would push their way. Starting in year two, K-12 schools would see an extra $1 billion in revenue. But Brown doesn’t yet have the votes to eliminate redevelopment agencies, with some Democrats balking in the Senate.

Brown apparently had no Plan B, so it’s all improvising from here. The governor insists that he’ll keep his campaign promise to place any tax extension or new tax before voters. But that vote will be in September at the earliest, or November, which complicates things immensely. As of July 1, the temporary taxes expire, so we’re talking about passing new taxes, not extending existing taxes – a bigger challenge. Second, the Legislature would either have to pass an all-cuts budget, and then rescind some if the initiatives pass, or use gimmicks and borrowing to get the state through the first three or six months of the fiscal year – just what Brown promised not to do – until voters made the final decision.

Middle ground: six-month extension

Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg disagrees with putting tax extensions to a popular vote. The focus should be on passing the budget by July 1, with a two-thirds majority, he says.

So wouldn’t the middle ground be for the Legislature to pass a six-month tax extension, leading to the ballot question in November for a 3- or 5-year extension? That strikes me as reasonable.

But can Republicans who voted against putting tax extensions on the ballot be persuaded instead to extend the taxes themselves? Here are the arguments – OK, maybe it’s spin or fantasy – that I’ve heard over the past week as to why it’s possible:

• Some Republicans won’t want to be blamed for the consequences of $26.6 billion in cuts that will wreck parks, schools and state services – not when they can claim credit for cutting a deal for regulatory reform, a spending cap, and pension reform in return.

• Brown says he and Republicans were close on the issue of pensions; as proof, he made public some of his ideas, ticking off union leaders who claim they weren’t consulted. That’s at least a sign that Brown is willing to go further than some of his key supporters want.

• Republican anti-tax jihadists, like Grover Norquist and the bilious Southern California radio duo of John and Ken, consider it treason just to meet with Brown, so there’s no sense trying to appease them. Just do the right thing and hope reasonable voters agree.

• Republicans aren’t alone in feeling pressure; faced with the choice between making devastating cuts to education and social services and compromising on pension issues and constitutional limits on spending – all popular with voters, the polls say – Democrats should be willing to cut a deal.

• The Californian Labor Federation is talking about launching radio ads and campaigns against select Republicans who might be vulnerable in 2012 because of redistricting and the new open primaries favoring moderate candidates. The billionaire right-wing Koch brothers, who have been funding radio ads to make sure Republicans toe the line, don’t own the airwaves.

• Liberal and labor groups, such as the California Federation of Teachers, are threatening initiatives to raise the income tax on the richest 1 percent or on oil production. Business interests prefer extending the temporary extension of the less progressive broad-based car, sales, and general income taxes instead and will make that known to their Republican friends.

It’s all armchair speculation, of course; as of now, there are no Republican votes. Which is why Brown is ready to roll.