Off the wire: California's Governor has declared a fiscal emergency and is imposing $8 billion in emergency cuts, asking for $7 billion in Federal aid.

Governor Schwarzenegger has declared that the state is facing a deficit of $41.6 billion - nearly half of projected revenues.

The summary budget can be found here.  While there are major cuts in a lot of programs, what's amazing is what's not cut - specifically, K-12 and higher education, both of which are either flat or receive increases.

Debt service is also up, and may go up a lot more.

This is what I would call "a good start" - but exempting overly-bloated state educational systems is idiotic.  They are a huge part of the budget and, along with "health and human services", need to bear more of the pain.

When all is said and done with a 50% deficiency The Governor is proposing to decrease spending by a paltry 3.7%.

Where did you put the bong, Arnie?

You said you were missing half the money you needed - or rather, to balance the budget based on revenues you'd have to manage to cut the budget in half, double revenues, or some combination.

So how is it that you come up with the revenue and expense numbers in that latter document?  They balance.... how's that?  I've not found the trick yet, but I'm sure there is one.

A 3.7% reduction can't close a 50% deficit.

When facing an elephant that is threatening to stomp you the appropriate response is not to attempt to address him with a flyswatter.