Opinion: In today’s pages: The California budget, the foreclosure wave and the L.A. Marathon

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The Times’ editorial board goes long today on the shortfall in state revenue, laying out a dozen principles for Sacramento to follow as it closes a $24 billion budget gap. The first and most important, the board says, is to avoid default. And although the board urges lawmakers to avoid cutting health care and human services as much as possible, it nevertheless says that lawmakers must take an axe to some sacred cows. Reflecting the amount of work that must be done quickly, the editorial is heavy on the imperative:

Deeply cut programs, knowing there will be long-term consequences, but knowing also that the alternative is even more damaging cuts. Accept, for two to five years, some defunding of K-14 education. Wince at the consequences -- teachers will lose jobs -- but move forward. Slash from higher education, and hope to rebuild the universities in better times. Release nonviolent inmates early, and brace for additional law enforcement and social costs.
Meanwhile, on the Op-Ed page, journalist and author Peter Schrag blasts a proposed constitutional amendment to give the state legislature formal control over the University of California system. Joel Sappell, a former editor at The Times, writes about the changes that California’s wave of foreclosures have brought to his Eagle Rock neighborhood. Journalist and woodworker Greg Goldin offers a tribute to Alan Bohnhoff and Jaime Sanchez, who were slain last month at Bohnhoff Lumber Co. in Vernon. And runner Greer Wylder, who recently finished her seventh L.A. Marathon, calls for a new route along streets that are distinctive, rather than ones that are easy to close:

Other cities have created ambitious courses highlighting their characters and history.... Each of the courses is different, but they all reflect a sense that organizers deliberately chose routes to highlight their cities’ most appealing characteristics -- diversity, natural beauty, neighborhood charm, history. None of that is much evident running beside the fast-food outlets and car dealers along South Figueroa.

Finally, in Letters to the Editor, readers of the Times offer their takes on President Obama’s speech in Cairo, the anniversary of the China’s Tiananmen Square massacre, the vandalism of Channise Davy’s home in Duarte and Steve Lopez’ column about three dentists’ charitable efforts.

-- Jon Healey