Commentary

CA: moratorium on bad news until after the election

Gov. Schwarzenegger “has decided to postpone formally releasing the latest bad news in the ongoing state budget mess,” until Wednesday, after the election. Wait until voters have put away their credit cards–er, ballots–before discussing things like:

The problem’s size has been variously put at anywhere from $10 billion to $12.5 billion by various officials, including Schwarzenegger. That’s triple the size of the deficit estimated by the administration a few weeks ago, when the state was issuing $5 billion in short-term borrowing notes.

However, with headlines like, “Draft report: Prison medical care costs $2.3 billion higher,” it appears not everyone got the memo.