SACRAMENTO — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Wednesday that the state's current year budget shortfall has ballooned to $14.8 billion — more than 25 percent worse than the previous estimate.

For every day the Legislature fails to adopt midyear corrective actions, he said, the state is accumulating $470 per second in red ink.

Schwarzenegger made the announcement at a brief news conference at which he unveiled a display board that will be posted outside his Capitol office: one that keeps an up-to-the-second, running tabulation of the budget shortfall. On Wednesday, the board was labeled, "Legislature's Failure to Act: Day 35."

Schwarzenegger counts the number of days since Nov. 3, when he first ordered a special session of lawmakers to deal with the fiscal crisis. That session of the Legislature has since disbanded, and Schwarzenegger again called a special session immediately after newly elected lawmakers were sworn in Dec. 1.

"The problem gets worse by the second," Schwarzenegger said. "If we don't put aside our ideological differences we are headed for a financial Armageddon."

The governor said he will convene a meeting of the so-called "Big 5" today, at which he will likely reveal updated projections of the shortfall in the 2009-2010 budget. Previous estimates put that shortfall at $17 billion, but Finance Director Michael Genest indicated the administration's new forecast shows a much higher number.

The Big 5 consists of Schwarzenegger and the top Democratic and Republican leaders of the Assembly and Senate.

Schwarzenegger has proposed a mix of spending cuts and tax increases to close the gap. Democratic leaders have balked at some of the cuts, including once-a-month furloughs of most state employees, while Republican leaders insist they will not vote for any tax increase.

It would take agreement from both sides to act, because California's Constitution requires that all appropriations and tax levies be approved by a two-thirds vote of both houses of the Legislature.

Schwarzenegger said lawmakers must find a way to compromise because "the most costly and damaging thing we could do right now is to not take any action at all."

Schwarzenegger was particularly critical of GOP leaders, whom he accused of not offering solutions to the problem. "What is important is to come to a meeting and be prepared," he said. "I have felt many times that Republicans have not come prepared."

Assembly Republican leader Mike Villines of Fresno said this week that Republicans will publicly propose their own set of budget solutions Monday. This week he revealed a list of GOP demands in an interview with the Sacramento Bee editorial board but said Republicans would not necessarily agree to tax increases if all those demands were met — only that they would then consider the idea.

"You can't come up with a list and say, ‘Do this and then we are ready to talk,'" Schwarzenegger said. "That is not any way to negotiate."