Arnold Schwarzenegger said he wanted "action, action, action, action" during his governorship, but the Legislature's hallmark is procrastination, and you could almost feel the downshift into low gear Monday as lawmakers digested Schwarzenegger's demand for serious spending cutbacks to close the state's immense budget deficit.

Monday was, in a sense, the real beginning of the legislative year, and of the emerging duel between Schwarzenegger and Democratic leaders over spending cuts and taxes. The excitement of Schwarzenegger's pre-holiday inauguration and last week's State of the State address and budget unveiling has faded. Now it's time for the real game, and it promises to be a long and contentious one, despite the new governor's need, or at least penchant, for speed.

The governor wants to push the Legislature into quick action on the budget and other issues -- especially workers' compensation reform -- while he still retains momentum from his election. But Democrats believe, or at least hope, that procrastination will give outside interest groups time to develop popular opposition. Some are already cranking up advertising and grass-roots campaigns on particular issues, such as Schwarzenegger's demand for limits on the program that pays caregivers for services to the disabled in their homes.

John Burton, president pro tem of the Senate and the Legislature's most influential Democrat, signaled the parameters of the budget battle Monday when he denounced the new budget as "very unworthy ... for the people of California," and renewed his call for an income tax surcharge on high-income Californians to bolster programs serving the poor.

Schwarzenegger has repeatedly vowed that he wouldn't accept new taxes of any kind, saying they would short-circuit California's economic recovery. And his budget, while leaving almost no spending category unmolested, does take a big bite out of the health and social services programs that Burton-led Democrats and former Gov. Gray Davis expanded sharply during the first years of Davis' tenure.

Ordinarily, it takes six months for a new budget to be developed and presented by the governor, processed through endless legislative hearings, rewritten by the Legislature, massaged by high-level political negotiations and, finally, pared by the governor. Schwarzenegger's aides have said he'd like to have it done by May, but Burton dismissed that out of hand, and there are few indications it will happen any sooner than normal. Indeed, if a stalemate over spending and taxes does develop, it could be August or even September before a new budget is enacted.

There are, however, more than competing ideologies involved. California voters will have a rare opportunity to weigh into the debate directly in March when they pass judgment on a balanced budget amendment sought by Schwarzenegger, a $15 billion bond issue to refinance existing state budget debt and, perhaps most importantly, a measure that would reduce the legislative voting margins for budgets and taxes from two-thirds to 55 percent.

What happens on the bond issue and the vote margin measure will directly affect the tenor of this year's budget wrangle. Passage of the bond would remove some of the fiscal pressure while approval of lower voting margins would free Schwarzenegger, if he wishes, to make a budget deal with majority Democrats without having to cajole votes out of his fellow Republicans. Rejection of the bond could spark a cash crisis and bring Wall Street lenders back into the game.

Even without lowering the budget vote margin, Schwarzenegger holds strong cards in the budget game. He's popular and the Legislature isn't, he can command the media forum, he's demonstrated a willingness to take bold unilateral action, he's able to cut deals with outside interest groups to take them out of the opposition coalition (he did it already with the California Teachers Association) and, finally, he has the powerful authority to reduce individual budget appropriations.

The real questions are those only Schwarzenegger himself could answer. How firm is his opposition to new taxes? And how susceptible is he to public pressure from unions, health care advocates and other spending interest groups?