California legislators concluded the final workweek of the fiscal year Friday in a state of budget paralysis, as two more attempts to pass a spending plan failed.

Lawmakers had no plans to meet this weekend.

In their last move of the week, Republicans rejected a pair of budget plans on the Assembly floor and Democrats challenged them to craft their own budget blueprint for a vote Monday.

Both legislative houses are officially "on call" over the weekend but leaders have said they have no plans to meet. Gov. Gray Davis is in New York attending family events, but he issued a statement late Friday urging lawmakers to "find common ground."

"Failure to do so would be irresponsible and dangerous," Davis said.
If lawmakers fail to adopt a budget by midnight Monday, California will begin the new fiscal calendar without a spending plan for the third straight year.

Without a budget, Controller Steve Westly has said he will stop paying elected officials and, by late July, the state's cash will begin to dry up, workers will face steep pay cuts, and payments will not be made to vendors who supply services and products to government departments.

On Friday, Democrats again attempted unsuccessfully to sway GOP lawmakers to vote for budgets that relied on tax increases, cuts and borrowing to help fill a deficit expected to reach $38 billion by the end of next fiscal year. Republicans balked, saying they will stick to their anti-tax position at all costs.

One of two plans put forth Friday in the Assembly amounted to the latest of several legislative Democratic variations on a blueprint proposed by Davis in May.

The roughly $100 billion spending plan included $13 billion in cuts, fees and other money-saving measures, along with an income tax boost for the state's top earners. It also called for the elimination of a popular tax credit for manufacturers and borrowed some $10.7 billion by selling bonds and raising the sales tax a half-penny to pay them back over a half decade.

In addition to putting forth their budget proposal Friday, Democrats introduced an inch-thick bill that they said contained all of the proposals made by Assembly Republicans. GOP lawmakers spelled out a plan in late April that rejected new taxes or fees and relied instead on debt financing and steeper cuts to some programs.

But Republicans said the bill raised by Democrats on Friday contained several differences from their proposal and complained that Democrats only shared the plan with them hours before bringing it up for a vote.

"You do (a budget bill) in the dark of night and throw it on our desk in the middle of the morning and say 'Vote on this'?" asked Assemblyman John Campbell, R-Irvine. "This is not productive; this is a drill."

Assembly Speaker Herb Wesson, D-Culver City, then directed Republicans to amend the bill for debate Monday, but Cox said he has no plans to put up a Republican plan Monday because there is not time to piece it together by then.

Nearly four hours of emotional debate in the Assembly on Friday echoed battles that lawmakers have been having for months as California faces its worst-ever budget crisis.

Republicans -- the minority party in each chamber -- have declined to supply the handful of votes needed to approve a budget, saying Democratic legislators and Davis engaged in runaway spending when fiscal times were good.

"We can have a budget just as soon as you understand that we cannot continue to spend more than we take in and you cannot, in fact, solve this problem with a tax increase," said Assembly Republican leader Dave Cox of Fair Oaks. "You must, in fact, make serious spending reductions."

Democrats, on the other hand, blame the dot-com bust and general economic slump, and insist that GOP lawmakers also supported billions in tax cuts and pumping money into education and other government programs during the fiscally good times.

They've also said that patching the state's budget hole with spending cuts alone would devastate services, particularly to the state's children, poor and frail residents.

"Don't accuse us of spending willy-nilly, because you took the trip with us," Wesson told Republicans. "It takes two to dance, and you danced with us."