California lawmakers vote for reduction in deficit by $17 billion

SACRAMENTO >> California lawmakers don’t know for sure how big their budget deficit is, but on Thursday they decided it’s big enough to go ahead and reduce spending by about $17 billion.

The vote represents a preemptive strike from Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is trying to get ahead of a stubborn shortfall that has been increasing every month and will likely extend into next year and beyond — when the second-term governor could be eyeing a campaign for the White House.

The true size of the deficit has been difficult to pin down. In January, Newsom insisted it was about $38 billion. But the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office said it was actually $58 billion because Newsom didn’t include some reductions in public education spending. Then in February — after state revenues continued to come in below expectations — the LAO revised its estimate to as much as $73 billion.

State budgets across the country have tightened as economic growth has slowed and states have exhausted the billions of dollars in aid from the federal government during the coronavirus pandemic. The problem is more pronounced in California, where the budget is easily the largest in the country — and in fact the state’s economy is bigger than most countries.

The deficit could be a liability to Newsom, particularly as he steps into his role as a top surrogate of President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign. Newsom and his allies in the state Legislature have been doing everything possible to reduce the deficit. For instance in December, the governor ordered state agencies to immediately cut costs. And last month, Newsom signed a law raising a tax on companies that manage California’s Medicaid program, raising another $1.5 billion.

Newsom won’t announce an updated deficit number until next month, after Californians have filed their tax returns and state officials have a better idea of how much money they have. Thursday’s vote in the state Legislature means Newsom can announce a number that will be much smaller than it would have been. The $17 billion in reductions lawmakers approved Thursday, combined with the anticipated withdrawal of about $13 billion from the state’s various savings accounts, means Newsom can already count on reducing about $30 billion of the shortfall.

“The reality is that even with the deal, the state still faces a deficit of tens of billions of dollars,” said Chris Hoene, executive director of the California Budget and Policy Center. “They’ve left a lot of hard stuff on the table to be resolved over the next two months.”

There were no headline-grabbing cuts in the reductions lawmakers approved on Thursday. Despite California’s recent budget woes, the Democrats in charge have refused to raise income taxes or impose steep cuts to the most expensive programs, including health care and public education.

Instead, most of the savings comes from either cancelling or delaying spending that was approved in previous years but hasn’t yet been spent. It also relies on a number of accounting tricks to make the shortfall appear smaller.

Republicans have long assailed this strategy, arguing that Democrats are just pushing spending into the future in the hopes the deficit will be temporary and revenues will recover quickly. Both the LAO and the Newsom administration have projected multibillion-dollar budget deficits not just this year, but also for next year and the year after that.