California is looking at a budget deficit of $68 billion this year. That’s the largest deficit in real dollars in California history and comes one year after the state’s record-setting $97.5 billion surplus.
How is that possible? The state claims that lower revenues were largely driven by a change to the state’s tax filing deadline and poorer-than-expected economic conditions. Not mentioned was the billions in lost tax revenue from people who fled the state in the last few years.
California lost 407,000 people from July 2021 to July 2022, “including a greater share of those with a college degree and residents at all income levels than in the past,” according to the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
The non-partisan Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) says that the state’s budget deficit ballooned $54 billion from $14 billion in June.
Fox News:
As a remedy to the ballooning deficit, the LAO suggested the state dip into its $24 billion in cash reserves, as well as reduce spending on schools and community colleges. It also pointed to one-time spending cuts and shifting costs without impacting core services.
It added that the legislature…
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