When the summer budget deal went down, I’ll admit that I was a skeptic and suggested that we would be back in October/November to fix it.  Hey, I was wrong, it looks like we might make it all the way into mid-winter!

Of course, those glad tidings may just be a temporary respite. But for now, buoyed by a resurgent stock market and other signs the recession is on its way out, the state’s fragile revenue and spending projections ought to hold up until at least mid-January – and maybe even beyond, analysts and economists say. (SJ Merc 9/28/09)

So, who is jumping for joy like me right now.  Sure, the budget deal left us with more questions than answers, but we get to ignore it for a few weeks. Hoo-ray! Sure, there doesn’t seem a realistic option for getting that $1 billion sale of the “State Fund”, a quasi-governmental workers compensation fund. And the budget backloaded a whole litany of spending items and frontloaded tax intakes.

But, we get to wait until winter! Hoo-ray! And don’t listen to those nattering nabobs of negativism like former Assembly Budget Chair John Laird. Just because he knows the budget system inside and out doesn’t mean he, umm…

Should the economic turnaround prove short-lived, “I just don’t know where they go,” said Laird, who helped draw up last year’s budget. “They’ve already done some of the worst possible things, and to still have to go further “… It’s just a nightmare.”

Aww, let’s just say it, we’re screwed.