DAVIS’ DEFICIT

Journalists are supposed to doubt everything, confirm everything, but that’s awfully difficult. If the police tell you a thief escaped in a green Volvo, it takes a lot of energy to think of doubting, let alone to doubt and confirm, that the Volvo may not have been green, that it may not have been a Volvo and that there may have been no theft in the first place.

You should doubt all three. But, well, come on.

So on Oct. 9, when I pointed out that California’s budget deficit of $38 billion was tiny as a percent of gross state product (borrowing from a Republican defense on the U.S. deficit), I was checking the wrong thing.

It’s not that $38 billion is only 2.7 percent of California’s GSP; it’s that the deficit was cut down to only $8 billion in July, long before the gubernatorial recall vote that traded Gray Davis for Arnold Schwarzenegger.

As much as I’m kicking myself, why not spread the blame? The lamebrains trying to keep Davis in office did a terrible job of getting the word out.

By the way, $8 billion is 0.6 percent of California’s gross state product.