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A short honeymoon indeed -- Arnold just got bitch-slapped by the state Senate 34-0. I guess that means some Republicans voted against his proposal also.

So where does that leave him? He needs to submit a budget by early January, I think, for FY2005. He has a $14 billion shortfall out of $50 billion in the general fund, and doesn't want to cut a number of programs, which limits him further.

The choices he has seem to be to cut spending by 28% (reduce payrolls, reduce expenditures like supplies and travel, cut back on hours, etc) or increase taxes. Of course, he pledged to not increase taxes so that is really not a feasible option at this point. But the pressure to raise taxes to save health, city/county, fire and police, parks and rec, libraries, higher education, welfare, workers comp, etc. programs will be tremendous.

The Democrats will probably propose to meet him halfway -- a 14% reduction in spending and a 14% increase in taxes. The Democrats will try to put any tax increase all on the upper brackets, and the "mean" Republicans will propose sales taxes and across the board income tax increases.

In the longer term, he should put his spending cap and reserve fund proposal up for the voters in November 2004.

It will be interesting!