Is this the Arnold that California voted for? SACRAMENTO (AP) ― Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a fiscal emergency on Monday and called lawmakers into a special budget session, warning that California was in danger of running out of daily operating cash within two months.
The special session will force the new Legislature to get to work immediately and figure out a way to solve the $11.2 billion budget deficit in the current fiscal year. The governor's declaration came just days after a previous special session with the outgoing class of lawmakers failed to produce a compromise.
Unless budget corrections are made quickly, the state is likely to run out of cash in February and see its revenue gap widen to $28 billion over the next 19 months.
Schwarzenegger said legislators so far have failed to grasp the seriousness of the crisis, which is growing worse by the day.
"The longer we wait, the more we will have to lay off people ... It gets worse very quickly. It's like an avalanche, it gains momentum," Schwarzenegger said during a news conference in Los Angeles, where he signed a series of budget-related orders.
The Republican governor and Democrats in the Legislature have proposed a combination of tax hikes and spending cuts, but Republican lawmakers have remained steadfast in their refusal to raise taxes.
Lawmakers failed to reach a compromise during the special session Schwarzenegger declared last month, pushing the problem to the new Legislature that was sworn in Monday.
Schwarzenegger said lawmakers' failure to act has cost California an additional $1.5 billion to $2 billion because the state continues to spend at the same rate even as revenue declines.
"Now we have to make more cuts and raise more revenues because of that," he said.
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