California will face a projected $18 billion deficit next year, setting up a challenge for Gov. Gavin Newsom to safeguard some of the progressive policies that have defined his tenure as he considers a presidential run.

The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office projected the shortfall in a report released Wednesday. It would mark the state’s fourth deficit in a row. State spending continues to grow much faster than revenues, and new federal policy changes to health care and food assistance programs for low-income people will also increase costs for the state by $1.3 billion, the report says.

Newsom will release his own budget estimates in January as he lays out a spending proposal for the next fiscal year; sometimes his office disagrees with the LAO and paints a rosier financial pictu

See Full Page