•May 3, 2017•

By Jim Nowlan
NP Guest Columnist

As we enter a third year without a state budget, I turn to readers to close a gap of about $9 billion between state expenditures of $72 billion (hard numbers difficult to nail down, as no budget) and annual revenues of about $63 billion.

There are of course two ways to do this: cut expenditures and/or increase revenues. Nearby I lay out a necessarily compressed and incomplete set of prominent, quite real budget options. Can you select among the options to come up with $9 billion in actions that would close the budget gap?

I am hoping many readers will at least try. The layout will undoubtedly prompt questions, which I would try to answer, if you emailed me. There is, unfortunately, neither time nor technical expertise on my part to make this exercise interactive.

I want to encourage summary responses from readers, whatever they are—to my email address below. What would you do if you were in charge?     Login or Subscribe to read the rest of this story.