From the Sacramento Bee:

Gov. Jerry Brown announced Monday that the state budget deficit had grown by a remarkable 70 percent since January, but fiscal experts said the economy had little to do with it.

They instead blamed a bad marriage of volatile capital gains and political intransigence that led state leaders last year to count on a huge upswing in revenues that never materialized. At the same time, corporate tax changes from 2009 appear to have cost California more than state officials ever realized.

The Democratic governor says the general fund deficit has mushroomed from $9.2 billion to $15.7 billion. Most of the widening gap comes from acknowledging that his previous forecast was too optimistic, a concern that economists voiced last summer.