California’s Legislative Analyst’s Office announced Thursday that California faces a $68 billion deficit — the largest in state history. For comparison, that’s bigger than Maryland’s entire budget for fiscal year 2024.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s efforts to present California as shining city on a hill — and himself as its brilliant leader — just got a lot harder. His declaration during his debate with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis last week that “California dominates” now sounds like a joke.

Gabriel Petek, the chief deputy legislative analyst of the agency, said California has a “serious budget problem.” According to the Legislative Analyst’s Office, the revenue decline was “similar to those seen during the Great Recession and dot‑com bust.”

Newsom wants to be on TV announcing history-making, progressive policies. Now, he will spend the remainder of his second term reckoning with deficit after deficit, as the Legislative Analyst’s Office said it is predicting additional deficits of $30 billion per year from 2025–2026 through 2027–2028. Newsom will be forced to choose which of his radical spending policies to curtail. Undoing spending policies he trumpeted as paragons of morality and justice will be painful.

California’s deficit shatters Newsom’s narrative that the whole nation should strive to be like California. The state is in a full-blown recession that is marked by some of the nation’s highest unemployment, poverty, and inflation rates.

The deficit announcement caps a bad week for Newsom, as Newsom’s performance in the Nov. 30 Fox News debate received poor reviews.

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