New York's budget deficit has grown to 9 billion dollars. But Governor Paterson said yesterday that he was more concerned with the state's immediate cash crunch.

"At the end of March, we have to make payments to local governments...and for Medicaid," Governor Paterson said at a town-hall style meeting in Brooklyn. "We are two billion dollars short, and nobody knows where we are going to come up with the money."

The governor said he was considering holding back tax refund checks for a few weeks to cover this month's budget gap. The assembly is expected to pass a bill today that stops him from doing that.