Free Republic

Half of voters think legislators should focus on spending cuts over taxes to close all or part of the $19.9 billion budget deficit, according to the latest Field Poll. A trailing 29 percent said they supported an equal mix of spending cuts and tax increases, according to the results, which were released today. The poll also showed a slight edge in opposition to a proposal to lower the supermajority vote requirement for passing a budget to a majority vote, with respondents split 47-43 percent.

<p>Is Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger looking to crawl out of the not-so-little political box he put himself in - the campaign promise that the state's budget gap can be closed without any new taxes? "That does not mean that later on someday you cannot go there," Schwarzenegger recently told The Sacramento Bee. In other recent interviews with other newspapers, the governor has similarly gone from a fast-and-firm no to a fudging maybe.</p>

<p>Only three days after taking over as governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger was back on the campaign trail Thursday, hitting talk radio and a rally in Los Angeles to warn legislators that there would be "severe casualties" if they don't pass his budget plan. There's only one problem: He hasn't presented anything worthy of being called a plan.</p>