Likely bracing Californians for another jolt of bad financial news later this week, aides to Gov. Gray Davis on Monday joined with national experts to stress that, as far as state finances are concerned, times are tough all over.

"The situation for states fiscally is nothing short of brutal," said Scott Pattison, executive director of the National Association of State Budget Officers. "Small states, large states, states in every region ... By any means that you look at it, the situation in the states is very, very dire."

California's budget shortfall, estimated at $34 billion, is by far the largest, but the economic forces that have ravaged this state's tax revenues have had the same effect nationwide, according to a report released this month by the Rockefeller Institute.

The report shows that state tax revenues have fallen much more sharply than national economic activity as a whole, mostly because capital gains taxes disappeared when the stock market wilted, said Nicholas Jenny, the analyst who compiled the report.

"A relatively mild recession has resulted in a huge loss of revenues to the states," Jenny said.

States hit hardest are generally those with high wealth and a significant presence of the high-technology industry. Between fiscal 2001 and fiscal 2002, nine states' per-capita tax revenues fell by more than 10 percent: Alaska (30.5), California (20.2), Massachusetts (15.6), Oregon (15.2), New York (12.5), Colorado (12.1), Vermont (11.9), New Jersey (11.6) and Connecticut (10.6).

The falling revenues have led states to enact or discuss every imaginable budget-balancing measure, from raising taxes, increasing fees, cutting education and health-care programs, and spending all of their rainy-day accounts, Pattison said.

On Wednesday, Davis will release his revised May budget proposal, which is expected to include all those measures and more. The proposal will update the plans he laid out in January to reflect up-to-date information on state revenues and expenditures. Finance Director Steve Peace on Monday said the new figures will show that the administration's original revenue estimates, criticized as overly pessimistic at the time, were mostly accurate.

Peace said the economic forces that are hurting all states hit California sooner than most, and that for others the worst is still to come.

"Texas now recognizes a $10 billion shortfall in '04-'05," Peace said. "That's a problem comparable to California's, but they haven't gotten there yet."

Aides to Davis organized a conference call between the state finance experts and reporters, in part to rebut the assertions of Republicans who claim that California's problems have been caused principally because of overspending by Davis and the Democrat-controlled Legislature.

Democrats nationwide are pressuring Congress to include assistance to states as part of the economic recovery package that includes President Bush's proposed tax cuts. They argue that financial assistance to states will help stabilize the unemployment rate because it would save the jobs of thousands of teachers, nurses, firefighters and other public employees who would otherwise lose their jobs as the result of state budget cuts.