In Sacramento lawmakers call it "the budget from hell" -- and not just because trying to reach agreement on the $56.4 billion spending plan has required both houses of the legislature to work far into the night no fewer than a dozen times. Closing a $14.3 billion deficit -- the largest state shortfall in U.S. history -- means violating the politician's basic instinct to please voters by cutting taxes and handing out goodies.
Previous Governors spent years postponing the hard choices the state must make, but Republican Pete Wilson, who took office in January, is determined to put California's rickety fiscal...
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