BUDGET DAY PLUS 59 -- And now, the non-news.

Today's Senate budget vote was, as expected, unproductive. We were also unable to get our schedule in order today for the Capital Notes Podcast, but will be back on track next week. And I'm traveling this weekend to Minnesota for next week's Republican National Convention (my colleague Scott Shafer's coverage of the Democrats is here).

More from Minneapolis and St. Paul on Monday.

BUDGET DAY PLUS 58 -- In hopes of ending a budget stalemate that's so far looked to be one for the record books, the state Senate tomorrow will vote on a budget plan that hinges on the chances of a few Republicans breaking with their party leadership and voting aye.

The overview budget document distributed this afternoon by Senate President pro Tem Don Perata's office is a modfied form of Governor Schwarzeneggrer's "August Revise" proposal.

Most notably, Senate Democrats are accepting Schwarzenegger's temporary sales tax increase, but rejecting his call to then lower the current state sales tax. The plan also calls for slightly more state spending than the governor has proposed.

And in what could be considered a major concession, it keeps intact Schwarzenegger's call for a larger rainy day fund for state government as well as Schwarzenegger's demand for new gubernatorial power to unilaterally cut spending if the budget gets out of whack in the middle of the year.

The intrigue, of course, is whether at least two GOP senators will break ranks and vote for the proposal. A written statement from Senate GOP Leader Dave Cogdill makes it clear the proposal is not going to get his vote.

Of course, approval in the Senate would only mean that the budget plan then lands in the lap of the Assembly, where its tax increase proposal would need at least six GOP votes... a much tougher task.

Still, tomorrow's vote does symbolize some movement on the budget front... even if only to force an actual floor debate on budget priorities of the two sides.

BUDGET DAY PLUS 57 -- If legislators are hoping that a raid on money from voter-approved programs is the fallback solution to the ongoing budget saga, they're not going to like the message Governor Schwarzenegger delivered today at an event in southern California.

"It is time to stop putting people through this budget roller coaster ride," he said this morning. "It is time for Sacramento to have the guts and the vision to solve this budget problem once and for all."

The governor's comments at a news conference with local government officials again confirms just how stuck budget talks are here in the state Capitol.

And with every day that now passes, the impact will become more obvious to ordinary folks.

Two significant state payments that were supposed to go out today have now been put on hold: more than $434 million owed to community colleges and more than $1.3 billion in monthly payments to K-12 education. Remember, only two budget impasses have lasted longer than this one... and the all-time record delay in legislative approval is now just four days away. And no one really knows the full effect of what happens by next week.

But the way around the big philosophical budget dispute -- a short-term borrowing of money reserved for various services -- seems to be losing steam.

On Monday, Assembly Speaker Karen Bass was asked about whether she and Assembly GOP Leader Mike Villines were discussing just such a borrowing plan. Bass deflected the point of the question, but reminded reporters that the only other options for closing the $15 billion gap -- more cuts or new taxes -- are essentially off the table.

Schwarzenegger made it clear days ago that he opposes a borrowing plan to break the impasse; today's event was probably designed to remind everyone of where he stands. And local officials in Los Angeles were only too happy to back that up.

"We want the Legislature to know that we are not going to tolerate another raid on local government funds," said LA County Supervisor Don Knabe. "We are watching. We won't tolerate it, we won't accept it."

BUDGET DAY PLUS 55 -- On this balmy Sacramento afternoon, while the political eyeballs are fixated eastward in Denver, it's worth noting that Sunday is the next milestone in California's state budget morass.

No deal by that day will make this budget stalemate the longest in Golden State history. And there's not even a whiff in the air of any kind of deal that will stop such history from being made. In fact, just the opposite.

"There's no huge deal that we're getting ready to pop up in the next few days," said Assembly Speaker Karen Bass.

Bass' reality check, though she says she remains optimistic, was made this afternoon in a brief chat with reporters in her Capitol office.

Both houses of the Legislature are officially in session, and for now it appears only a handful of Democrats sneaked off to the Mile High City. Speaker Bass pretty much closed the door on her own travel plans, telling reporters today that she has no plans to set aside budget business and jump on a plane, even for a scheduled fundraising event in Denver.

And her comments on budget negotiations help reinforce the notion that things remain very much stuck.

That was best exemplified by Bass' tentative comments on chatter about any deal making in the Assembly that would involve borrowing funds from local government, tobacco taxes, and others.

In summarizing her talks with Assembly GOP Leader Mike Villines, Bass laid out the issue thusly:

"He is very clear that [Republicans] will not vote for taxes. And I am very clear that [Democrats] cannot balance the budget through cuts alone. And so we have to find a way to fill the $15 billion gap."

That certainly sounds like the borrowing plan... which probably won't fully close the gap but would bring the numbers much closer together... may be the way out.

The speaker said more worrisome than a raid on these voter-approved funds would be the expensive Wall Street borrowing needed to keep the state afloat if the impasse drags on much longer.

Nonetheless, Bass denied that such a borrowing scheme is the only option. She again suggested the closing of so-called tax loopholes. But few Capitol budget watchers believe that there's enough money to be found in scaling back and/or erasing tax credits.

And so the standoff continues. For those who've forgotten, the record for late budgets was set in 2002; that summer's morass ended with approval of a budget by the Legislature on August 31 and signing by Governor Gray Davis on September 5.

[update: The original posting had the wrong dates in it... thanks to the quick eyes to keep me straight --JM]

BUDGET DAY PLUS 52 -- On this week's edition (a second edition!) of the Capital Notes Podcast, we focus on this week's budget talk... from Governor Schwarzenegger's new budget offering to the consensus that this impasse/logjam is alive and well.

We also examine Capitol Weekly's new rankings of the most conservative and liberal members of the Legislature.

Capitol Weekly editor Anthony York and I also chat about the chance that these embattled legislators may miss their political conventions because of the budget saga. Perish the thought.

And did we mention that the deadlock just passed last year's budget in lateness?

If you've got a state job, it appears your paycheck is safe for August.

The lawsuit filed by the Schwarzenegger administration against Controller John Chiang has been scheduled to be heard in Sacramento Superior Court on Friday, September 12. And because Chiang has refused to implement Schwarzenegger's minimum wage order unless the courts force him to... paychecks will keep rolling out in their normal fashion.

[see below for update]

BUDGET DAY 50 -- Welcome to the newest saga in the budget drama of 2008: will the budget impasse be resolved with borrowing big bucks earmarked by voters for other government services, and are legislative Republicans leading the charge?

In fairness, this isn't actually a new topic; rather, it's newly prominent... after Governor Schwarzenegger called out his fellow Republicans yesterday at the end of yet another unsuccessful budget meeting.

At issue: the possibility of borrowing a few billion dollars from money set aside for everything from local government (through 2004's Proposition 1A) and transporation (through 2002's Proposition 42 and 2006's Proposition 1A) to early childhood programs (through 1998's Proposition 10 tobacco tax) and even money for mental health programs (2004's Proposition 63).

While there's not enough money in these accounts to completely close the budget gap, it's believed that these bucks, plus spending cuts and... well, some good old-fashioned budget gimmicks... could probably get the state at, or near, closing the $15 billion deficit.

But the voter-approved initiatives require the money to be paid back sooner rather than later, sometimes with interest. In other words... it would be a one-time solution that would probably add to fiscal headaches in years to come.

Schwarzenegger's accusation yesterday that it's Republicans pushing this as a solution left the leaders of both GOP legislative caucuses angry.

But it's been mainly Republicans who have expressed public willingness to consider such a plan; Democrats have pretty consistently shot down such talk when it's surfaced the last few weeks.

One interview in particular with reporters that immediately stuck in the craw of local government folks and others (and I know, because a portion of it aired in a story of mine the next day and the phone started ringing just after our newscast) was given by Senate GOP Leader Dave Cogdill two weeks ago today.

Cogdill didn't necessarily say that he wanted to borrow the money, but acknowledged such action as a way out of the jam.

His unedited comments, first to the idea of a tax hike, and then to the issue of borrowing, can be heard below.

In a written statement released yesterday after the governor's public dressing down of Republicans, Cogdill tried to make the point that such borrowing would only happen if Democrats refused to cede any ground off their program priorities.

"If Democrats want to increase spending," Cogdill's statement reads, "they are going to have to either raise taxes or borrow money."

In other words, is it Democrats demanding certain spending... or Republicans rejecting certain revenues? Such ponderances lead to the same kind of brain freeze as a good milkshake.

One thing seems certain: should such borrowing be the ultimate solution to this standoff, it will probably be impossible to ever figure out just whose fingerprints are on it.

[update 2:38pm Schwarzenegger, in a news conference laying out a new budget proposal, seemed to close the door on the borrowing plan, but only after a little prodding from my follow-up question. His final comments on the suggestion: "It is not a wise idea, and I will not do that, no."]

BUDGET DAY PLUS 49 -- That was the simple and straightforward message delivered today by Governor Schwarzenegger after the four legislative leaders left his office with apparently no further progress on resolving the seven week old budget impasse.

The legislative leaders and Schwarzenegger met in one of their well known "Big Five" meetings for about an hour this afternoon. And the first sign of discord came from Assembly GOP Leader Mike Villines, who left the meeting with a not-so-thrilled look on his face.

"You can talk to everybody else when they come out," Villines said as he walked away from the scrum of reporters outside the governor's office. "I don't think [the meeting] was very helpful at all."

Both Democratic leaders apparently left through a back door, thus avoiding any comment on the meeting.

And about 30 minutes later, Schwarzenegger -- who rarely comes out the front doors of his office -- decided to offer his own take on the status of budget talks.

"They all have their ideology, and I totally understand it," the governor said. "But I think we all have to give in order to make this happen."

He also urged legislators to stay at it... perhaps a reference to the around-the-corner national conventions for both parties, which begins with Democrats next week in Denver.

And the governor took special aim at his fellow Republicans, who have refused all proposals for a tax increase.... both Democratic calls for a hike in personal income taxes on the most affluent and Schwarzenegger's own suggestion of a temporary sales tax increase.

"The Republicans want to go out and borrow money, more money before we have paid off our debt," he said in his most pointed criticism to date of GOP legislators.

Schwarzenegger was referring to talk inside the Capitol of borrowing from voter-approved programs to help close the $15 billion budget gap. Several weeks ago, he mentioned the idea in a newspaper interview, but didn't specify who was pushing it.

"I think that's not a good idea," he said.

And then there was this:

"Everyone has to compromise. Anyone that says they don't want to compromise, I think, they're not doing a service to the state of California and to the people of California."

The full audio of Schwarzenegger's comments is below.

A spokesman for Villines denied that Republicans are advocating any new borrowing.

[update 5:14pm And the official response from Senate GOP Leader Dave Cogdill, with a slightly different take on the borrowing accusation: "If Democrats want to increase spending, they are going to have to either raise taxes or borrow money."]

This week's Capital Notes Podcast is a few days late, delayed until after Sunday's big vote on a state budget in the Assembly.

Capitol Weekly editor Anthony York and I examine the dust that's settled since the budget failed to gain passage -- both what it means for the impasse itself, and today's chatter about ramifications for one legislator in particular.

BUDGET DAY PLUS 48 -- Politics is not for the faint of heart.

Less than 12 hours after not voting for, or against, the budget proposed by her fellow Democrats, Assemblymember Nicole Parra (D-Hanford) has been told to pack her bags and move her office out of the Capitol.

That's out of the building and across the street to the building that houses staffers, the Legislative Office Building.

Parra was the only Democrat in attendance (one was absent) on Sunday who did not vote for the budget proposal, which went down in defeat after failing to garner the necessary two-thirds vote. A couple of weeks ago, she told her hometown newspaper that, due to the needs of the 30th Assembly district, she couldn't vote for any budget if there wasn't also a water bond proposal to place on the November ballot. And Sunday night, she simply didn't vote.

The three-term Democrat has had a rough go if it with her party in recent times. Most notably, there were frosty reactions when some thought she was actually suggesting that voters in her district elect a Republican to succeed her this fall. Democrats have spent lots of time... and money... to keep Parra in office, in a district that's one of the only real competitive seats in the Assembly.

The official word... not much. Sources in the Assembly Democratic Caucus confirmed the action, but would only otherwise call it an "internal caucus matter."

Nonetheless, this is one of the more unusual punishments doled out in Capitol history. Lawmakers have been relegated in times past to small Capitol offices, or even had their locks changed for a temporary period for stepping out of line. But getting booted out of the building? That's a new one.