Scott Pattison, executive director of the National Association of State Budget Officers, testified at a recent legislative hearing on how California might improve its bollixed budget process by emulating other states.

Pattison ticked off states that had improved their budget processes – and their fiscal stability – with such reforms as multi-year projections of income, weighing long-term impacts of spending proposals, setting aside windfall revenues for reserves or one-time expenditures, and creating "rainy day funds" to soften the impacts of recessions.

As he spoke, the irony emerged: Everything he mentioned had been proposed in California at one time or another, only to be ignored, so we do none of the things he cited as best fiscal practices – common sense, really.

The current recession has clobbered state and local finances, leaving governments at all levels with severe deficits. But even when the economy was doing well a few years ago, the state was running deficits, as were many local school districts, cities and counties.