Arnold Schwarzenegger

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vowed Wednesday to let California government come to a "grinding halt" rather than agree to a high-interest loan to keep the state afloat if he and the Legislature do not close the yawning budget gap in coming weeks. At the same time, the governor reversed himself on a proposal to end health insurance for families of police officers and firefighters who died in the line of duty.

Marx Brothers fans will recall that the political philosophy of Rufus T. Firefly in "Duck Soup" boiled down to this: "If you think this country's bad off now, just wait 'til I get through with it." I've often considered that to be the secret slogan of Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration. (Just substitute "this state" for "this country.") After Tuesday's election, it's no longer a secret.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and his lawyers have switched strategies in the legal battle to resume executions, agreeing to submit revised lethal injection protocols for public review rather than continue appealing state court decisions that the redrafted rules are illegal. Although the move is intended to speed up a return of capital punishment, conservative law-and-order advocates and victims' rights groups expressed frustration over the persistent delays.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's plan to raise $1 billion by selling part of the state's scandal-plagued workers' compensation insurance company is running into strong flak from small-business advocates, the insurance industry and the state's elected insurance commissioner. The governor wants to help reduce a $24-billion budget deficit by giving private insurers a chance to buy about half of customers' policies at the government-controlled State Compensation Insurance Fund.

A proposal by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to shorten the school year by five days is creating panic among educators across California, who say they barely have enough time to fit the state's academic standards into the existing 180-day calendar. The idea to cut funding equivalent to five school days would save $1.1 billion at a time when California faces a massive budget deficit. But state Supt. of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell called the proposal "devastating."

As lawmakers wrangled last week over how to plug California's giant deficit, the governor who once called them "girlie men" sent the state Senate leader a package that has some Capitol insiders tsk-tsking over what they see as an ill-timed display of machismo. The gag gift from Gov.

The Schwarzenegger administration pushed through new rules Thursday allowing California's biggest timber firms to cash in on the fight against global warming even as they clear-cut parts of their forests. Forest owners stand to reap tens of millions of dollars in the coming decades by selling the capacity of their woods to cleanse the air of carbon dioxide, offsetting greenhouse gases belched by industrial polluters. But the administration's successful effort to allow loggers to sell their carbon credits to industry while also clear-cutting their lands sparked intense opposition from several conservation groups.

Manoel Silva de Cunha, leader of a group of 200,000 Brazilian forest-dwellers, was blunt about why he traveled this week from the Amazon to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's Global Climate Summit. The rubber tappers, nut gatherers and fishermen who live off tropical forests want money from American corporations to help them preserve the trees that cool the planet. "These companies have polluted a lot," he said. "They have to make up for it." Many of the 1,200 delegates who crowded into Century City's Hyatt Regency this week came with similar hopes: to cash in on California's expertise, its technology and the multimillion-dollar carbon trading market it plans to launch in 2012.

Describing California's monumental budget deficit as "a rock upon our chest," Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger broke from tradition in his State of the State address Thursday with a blunt vow not to advance any policy agenda this year before resolving the state's fiscal crisis.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has made the rounds of national television news shows in recent months, met with President-elect Barack Obama and convened conferences, discussing the world economic crisis, the pitfalls of partisanship and the virtues of clean energy. Now, in the new year, he has returned to Sacramento with a narrower, and much more painful, task.