Grayja-vu All Over Again

It surprises no one, except for California's political leaders in Sacramento, that the state now faces a $10 billion deficit. This was entirely predictable only four months ago, when the legislature and governor signed off on an optimistic budget that assumed tax revenues would remain as high as ever -- even though the housing market was already plainly in decline.

For all his boasting about "blowing up boxes." Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the uber-reformer, is looking ever more like the man he replaced -- Gray Davis. As we decribe in today's Daily News editorial, it's Grayja-vu: Arnold and Davis II:

In hindsight, it's only fitting that Arnold Schwarzenegger swept into office by recalling Gray Davis. Because the way things are going these days, we find ourselves recalling Davis all the time.

Davis, you might, er, recall, was given the boot for allowing California to run up a massive budget deficit. Under his watch, Sacramento locked itself into outrageous spending patterns based on the assumption that the dot-com boom would last forever.

It didn't, Gray got dumped, and along came Arnold, who has proved to be little more than a Davis sequel.

Read the whole thing here.