By DANIEL WEINTRAUB, Sacramento Bee

When he vetoes the new state budget approved by the Legislature in the early hours of Tuesday morning, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will reclaim the high ground on the issue that propelled him into the Governor's Office five years ago but has bedeviled him ever since: the state's badly broken finances.

So now we know.

Now we know what kind of budget the Republicans in the California Legislature have in mind.

Mike Shaw didn't want to be caught by surprise when California officials started cracking down on diesel engines.

Five years ago this month, Arnold Schwarzenegger met with the press for the first time as a candidate for governor. Emerging from a conference with a group of economic advisers at a hotel near the Los Angeles airport, Schwarzenegger declared his opposition to raising taxes to help balance the state budget.

The people of California, he said, were already taxed too much.

To the casual observer, the situation in Sacramento probably seems pretty bleak right now.

With the state of California facing a $15 billion budget shortfall, Democrats and Republicans are a month overdue in getting a new spending plan in place.

If I put bumper stickers on my car, I might try this one: "Don't blame me. I was only 17."

Hardly anyone voted in California's primary election Tuesday, but those who did seemed to be pretty grumpy. Voters are increasingly unhappy with the direction the state is taking, and the results brought some early signs that 2008 is shaping up to be a bad year for the political status quo.

With California on the edge of drought and water restrictions already beginning in some areas, the state might soon be looking toward an ancient practice that is attracting renewed interest around the world: rainwater harvesting.

As Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger grapples with a growing state budget deficit, Californians are taking an increasingly unfavorable view of the state's condition, its future and the governor's ability to cope with the fiscal mess that was the primary basis for his election more than four years ago, a new poll shows.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has now abandoned his goal of fixing the problem that led to his historic election in 2003. With the revised budget proposal he released Wednesday, the governor has effectively conceded that California's era of perpetual budget deficits will not end on his watch.