Although Governor Bill Ritter has just a few months left in office, he isn’t being spared any budget pains. On Friday, he announced his latest plans to handle the state’s $262 million deficit, which include measures from delaying payments to Medicaid providers to using federal money specifically earmarked for education jobs to help pay for K-12 education, notes CW2.

While the Democratic governor pointed out that Colorado’s Democrat-controlled legislature has cut about $4.3 billion from the state budget in the last three years, Republican Aurora City Councilman Ryan Frazier, who is running against Democratic U.S. Representative Ed Perlmutter in the 7th Congressional District, used the occasion to claim Democratic spending has increased the unemployment rate, writes the Denver Daily News, which does not discuss Frazier’s own plans for reducing the federal deficit.

Meanwhile, Perlmutter talks with The New York Times about the challenges faced by U.S. House representatives in the mid-term elections, as the House is expected to flip to Republican control. “I am normally an optimistic fellow, but I am also realistic,” Perlmutter says. “I have been talking to my buddies, and they are in tough races. But they are still right in it.”