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Opinion: The California Budget Challenge gets an update

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Calling all budget wonks! Next 10, the nonprofit public-policy group started by venture capitalist F. Noel Perry, has released a new version of its highly educational California Budget Challenge. The update walks users through some of the choices that lawmakers will confront this year if revenues into the state general fund continue to fall far short of projections. Even if you don’t spend the better part of your day mulling how to right the state’s listing fiscal ship, it’s definitely worth taking the challenge to understand the kinds of trade-offs involved.

I was familiar with many of the options presented -- cutting the school year by a week, raising the fees at community colleges, making deeper cuts in CalWORKS -- because Gov. Jerry Brown or the Legislative Analyst’s Office put them on the table earlier this year. The surprise for me was the amount that could be saved by imposing a spending cap. (The version voters will consider next year would save about $6.7 billion over five years; that option has drawn the support of about 7% of the challenge-takers.)

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It’s also instructive to see the pros and cons for each potential spending cut or tax increase, which the site does in an even-handed way, as well as the vote totals for the various options. I’m guessing Next 10 hasn’t attracted much attention from California Republicans; about 74% of the respondents voted in favor of increasing personal income taxes, and no one voted to lower them.

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-- Jon Healey

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