Inside Sacramento: Budget Gap Dominates Talk in State Capitol

KPBS | By KPBS Public Broadcasting

Published December 15, 2008 at 7:41 AM PST

This story was published more than 16 years ago.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and California's legislative leaders can't reach an agreement on how to resolve the state's $14.8 billion budget deficit for this year. What's causing this friction bet

Tom Fudge: The state of California can't balance its books, and the situation could get very ugly. Right now, the state faces almost $15 billion in mid-year cuts. But that's just the beginning. The state Department of Finance estimates the budget gap will be nearly $40 billion by June of 2010. Yet, the political stalemate in Sacramento gets nothing but worse. It's like a dysfunctional marriage in which the parents are willing to sacrifice their kids, as long as they can continue to undermine each other.

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John Myers, Sacramento bureau chief for The California Report.