Top Celebrity Schwarzenegger, California Lawmakers’ Aides Review Budget Terms

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and top lawmakers said they made substantial progress on a compromise to resolve the $26 billion deficit, with staff and lawyers set to work on plan details today.

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Senior Democrats emerged from a meeting with Schwarzenegger and top Republicans last night and they believed a final deal could be announced tomorrow. The review today involves details of cuts to school funding and how to best repay the money when the economy rebounds. Disagreement over that issue stalled negotiations July 16.

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We had a very good session,” Speaker of the Assembly Karen Bass, a Democrat from Los Angeles, told reporters outside Schwarzenegger’s office. “It is premature to say there is a deal. We do not have a deal yet, but we do think things are moving along well.

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The deficit in the $100 billion annual budget brought on by the longest recession since the 1930s and a political stalemate over how to close it has drained California of cash, forced it to pay some bills with IOUs and caused credit assessment companies to cut their ratings on the state’s bonds.

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A meeting of the so called “Big 5,” consisting of the Governor and top Democrat and Republican lawmakers from both the Senate and the Assembly, is scheduled for tomorrow evening.

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Controller John Chiang this month began issuing IOUs to businesses and others set to receive state payments to ensure enough cash remains to meet bond payments and others given high priority under the constitution.

“We are closer than we have been, but we still have some issues to resolve,” Schwarzenegger’s spokesman