The shortfall threatens to force the state’s deepest spending cuts in a decade.
California’s budget deficit has swelled to a record $68 billion after months of unexpectedly low tax revenues, a shortfall that could prompt the state’s deepest spending cuts since the Great Recession.
The latest deficit figure — calculated by the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office and released Thursday — far exceeds the $14.3 billion estimate from June. The shortfall, which is the highest in dollar terms but not as a percentage of overall spending, threatens to upend the upcoming legislative year by forcing Gov. Gavin Newsom and lawmakers to make spending cuts on a scale few term-limited elected officials in Sacramento have faced.
While not minimizing the shortfall, state budget analysts said California has options to address the deficit — including the use of cash reserves, one-time cuts in spending and changes to the way it funds education — that it didn’t have in previous downturns.
Yeah, it’s definitely not the exodus people make it out to be. But it is the first time California has had a negative growth rate. And a half million people leaving is certainly not nothing.
I mean it was 2020. I wonder what other significant things might have happened around then.
That exodus could also very well be people who came from out of state to work and now that work is paused they have to head back to their home state because they don’t have money.
“Nobody goes there anymore. Its too crowded!”