As California's budget impasse stretches into a third week, voter confidence in state leaders has disintegrated and support has declined for tax increases, according to a new statewide poll.

Approval for the Democratic-controlled Legislature has sunk to an all-time low, and three in four voters fear California is careening along the wrong track. Support for specific tax increases is shrinking. And, according to the Field Poll, dissatisfaction with Democratic Gov. Gray Davis continues to soar as he faces an increasingly likely recall vote.

"California is kind of an embarrassment right now," said George Blount, 44, a Republican Citrus Heights high school teacher who responded to the survey. "It's not just Gray Davis, it's also the Legislature and just huge mismanagement of the state."

A record-low 19 percent of voters said they approve of the job the Legislature is doing, while 67 percent disapprove, according to the poll conducted between July 1 and Sunday. Until now, the survey's lowest legislative approval rating was 23 percent in July 1992, during California's last major budget crisis.

Voters' appraisal of Davis is equally dismal, with 23 percent approving and more than six in 10 displeased with his job performance, the survey found. Davis, whose popularity has plummeted since the onset of the state energy crisis in early 2001, is facing a recall effort based on his handling of the budget.

"The budget is really having major negative effects on how voters are perceiving their elected officials in Sacramento," said Field Poll Director Mark DiCamillo.

The state has operated for 15 days without a budget as lawmakers haggle over solutions for a $38 billion-plus budget shortfall.

Democrats, who hold a majority in both legislative chambers, have called for a mixture of borrowing, cuts and tax increases, while Republicans vow to block tax hikes. A handful of GOP votes is needed to achieve the required two-thirds margin in each house to approve a spending plan.

By month's end, fiscal officers have said, the state will have halted some payments to community colleges, vendors, elected officials and legislative staff.

"They are not handling it at all," said survey respondent Charles Hall, 80, a retired carpenter and Democrat from Rancho Cordova. "They are sitting there batting the ball back and forth."

Today, the Senate is scheduled to take up a budget bill amended by Republicans to reduce spending by about $2.7 billion to avoid tax increases. On Monday, neither side expected the bill to be approved.

"We are not enamored of the Republican budget proposal," said Senate President Pro Tem John Burton, D-San Francisco.

But Burton said he has been talking regularly with Senate Republican leader Jim Brulte of Rancho Cucamonga. After today's vote on the budget bill, "Jim and I will sit down and work out a budget deal if we can," Burton said.

Republicans, meanwhile, declared the fresh survey results a victory. Many of the findings generally favor GOP views against taxes and in favor of placing a cap on state spending in the future.

Voters fear drastic cutbacks in state services -- particularly in schools -- but overall support for tax increases is lukewarm, the poll found.

Overall, while a majority of voters believe that tax increases are necessary to pull the state out of its worst-ever budget crisis, their numbers are shrinking.

A little more than half of voters said they believe a tax hike will be necessary to wipe out the deficit, less than the 62 percent expressing the same sentiment in April.

DiCamillo attributes the decline to a rise in the number of Republican voters who have been won over by their party leaders' adamant stance against tax hikes and only lukewarm support for increases among Democrats.

Two in three voters said the Davis administration raised the state's vehicle license fee without justification, and voters dislike many of the specific tax increases proposed by the governor and legislative Democrats.

One proposed tax increase won the support of more than half of voters: Raising the top income tax bracket from 9.3 percent to 11 percent for individuals earning more than $100,000 and couples who bring in more than $200,000 yearly.

However, nearly six in 10 voters oppose the centerpiece of Davis' May budget -- a plan to sell $10.7 billion in deficit bonds and raise the sales tax by a half-penny temporarily to repay them.

"Like any family, you have to learn to live within your means, and when times get tough, then you have to cut," said Jane Jeffs, 59, a retired Citrus Heights Republican. "I hate to see services cut but ... I just don't think always increasing taxes is the answer. And when you increase taxes, that's the way it stays. It never goes back down again."

Meanwhile, voters said they dislike the notion of reducing the required two-thirds threshold to approve a budget, but by a 2-1 margin support a plan to freeze state spending at its current levels and tie future growth to population and inflation increases.

"The public clearly believes that California has a spending problem and not a revenue problem," said Peter DeMarco, a spokesman for Assembly GOP leader Dave Cox of Fair Oaks.

The poll results are based on a telephone survey of 1,500 adults -- including 1,040 who said they are registered voters -- conducted in English and Spanish. The survey has a statistical margin of error of plus or minus 3.2 percentage points.