California's Budget Deficit

California seems pretty messed up right now. The economic recession and the state budget deficit are only part of the problem, but they are on my mind tonight. While I was cleaning out my inbox, I found an updated version of the Next 10 Challenge, which is a non-partisan site that lets you make the spending and revenue decisions for California's budget.



Taking the Next 10 Challenge is a good way to find out more about what kind of decisions the legislators are making and to find out more about what your own priorities are. When I took the Challenge today I learned that one of my priorities is education and that I'm willing to pay more in income tax to reduce the budget deficit.

California's current budget deficit will be 22.2 billion dollars in five years if we don't change things. If we do things my way, the deficit will be 6.8 billion dollars. If we do things your way, how will things look? Can you balance the budget?