California: “Dude, where’s 58% of my budget?”

California has the worst budget shortfall of the 50 states, both in dollars and percent of budget:

• California: $53.7 billion shortfall or 58 percent of its budget
• Arizona: $4 billion shortfall or 41 percent of its budget
• Nevada: $1.2 billion or 38 percent of its budget
• Illinois: $9.2 billion or 33 percent of its budget
• New York: $17.9 billion or 32 percent of its budget
• Alaska: $1.35 billion shortfall or 30 percent of its budget
• New Jersey: $8.8 billion or 30 percent of its budget
• Oregon: $4.2 billion or 29 percent of its budget
• Vermont: $278 million or 25 percent of its budget
• Washington: $3.6 billion or 23 percent of its budget
• Connecticut: $4.1 billion or 23 percent of its budget

So in other words California’s budget is (very roughly) $100 billion, but their projected revenue is only $42 billion. If your expenses were $100,000 per year and you only made $42,000 per year you’d realize you were deeply screwed, right?

This is going to be ugly.

Previously – Californians are getting the best government IOUs can buy