A group of economists came by yesterday to talk about our state’s unprecedented $6 billion budget shortfall. That almost sounds like the set-up to a joke, right? In fact, as a economist myself, I have a long list of economist jokes I like to tell. My favorite is: if you stacked all the economists of the world end to end, they still wouldn’t reach a conclusion.

Well, the group that came to see me did reach a conclusion. They presented me with a letter – you can read it here – and the conclusion is this: we can’t cut our way out of our budget crisis. Two hours later, our state’s economic forecaster announced that our budget situation has gotten worse, and the bottom line is no punch line.

Our shortfall is now $8.5 billion.