California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and top lawmakers came up with a compromise to close a $19.1 billion deficit and give the state a budget, ending a record three-month impasse with a vote expected next week on the spending plan.
The accord doesn’t raise taxes, as sought by Democrats, nor does it dismantle the state’s welfare system, proposed by Republicans, the leaders said yesterday. Schwarzenegger and the Democratic and Republican heads of the Senate and the Assembly, known as the Big Five, came to the agreement after a final five-hour negotiating session in the governor’s Sacramento office.
