SACRAMENTO — California faces a $12 billion budget shortfall, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Wednesday, as Donald Trump’s global trade war, devastating Los Angeles wildfires and growing health care costs have battered the state’s economy.
The projection, announced as part of Newsom’s updated May budget proposal, marks a significant decline for the state since January, when economic analysts projected a “roughly balanced” budget after years of deficits.
But deadly wildfires leveled entire neighborhoods in Los Angeles. President Trump launched an aggressive campaign of import taxes known as tariffs, sparking retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods across the world. And health care costs in the state overran projections, in part because of an expansion of health benefits to undocumented people…