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FILE -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's final budget fight dawns today, when he releases what's...

Special Section

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's final budget fight dawns today, when he releases what's widely expected to be a dire update of the already-dire spending plan he released in January.
It will be the most agonizing battle yet for a former movie hero who vowed seven years ago to forever fix California's finances.
What had been worst-case proposals — such as the elimination of programs serving millions of needy Californians — will probably now be part of the plan's bedrock, administration sources say. Expected on the chopping block: health insurance for low-income children, in-home care for the elderly and disabled, and CalWORKs, the state welfare program.
Because of weak tax revenue, Schwarzenegger could announce that the state's deficit has climbed as high as $22 billion, even after higher-than-expected collections in the first part of the year and after the Legislature whittled away $1.3 billion in a special session this winter.
The governor's latest, and last, budget proposal will form a grim bookend to the first one he produced in 2004. Then, as now, the state was beset by partisanship, debate about cuts vs. risky accounting tricks and hand-wringing over the state's credit rating.
Another summer of rancor and missed budget deadlines loom. And when it's all said and done, Schwarzenegger will leave behind for his successor the one problem that propelled him into office above all others.
For
supporters of the governor, the blame lies with Sacramento itself and what they call its resistance to change. They also note that California, like the rest of the nation, is still suffering from the worst global downturn since the Great