California's Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, has now made a provisional agreement to reduce the State's soaring budget deficit.
Its main features are a $9bn temporary cut in the education budget, plus multi-$bn cuts in welfare and health programmes.
The only good news is that it clears the way for oil drilling to resume off the Santa Barbara coast. The ban, aimed at preserving California's beaches, had clearly become an expensive luxury for the US's most populous state.