SACRAMENTO — It’s almost like slapstick comedy — the budget act that California’s Legislature and governor perform every year.

OK, it’s not really funny. But it is a joke — all the gymnastics the politicians go through trying to hide their red-ink spending and convince us they’ve met their legal obligation to produce a balanced state budget.

“Balanced” means having enough money to pay for all the authorized spending. But it’s largely guesswork. And the budget often is balanced only on paper. The state pencils in whatever numbers are needed to “balance” the books.

“They always cook the numbers,” gubernatorial candidate Antonio Villaraigosa told me last spring.

Villaraigosa, former Los Angeles mayor, knows firsthand about “cooking.” He once was in the kitchen as a powerful state Asse

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