Well, this didn't take long....

California's already battered credit rating suffered another downgrade from a Wall Street rating agency that criticized Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's decision to cut car taxes without any plan to pay for the move.

Moody's Investors Service said Tuesday that little has changed since Schwarzenegger won the Oct. 7 recall election, and the state has a "continuing inability to reach political consensus on solutions to its budget and financial problems." ...

Moody's analysts said the state's deficit will balloon by $7.5 billion this year because of the car tax reduction if no other steps are taken. Tuesday's downgrade mirrors one imposed last summer by Standard & Poor's and a more recent poor rating from Wall Street's other big credit agency, Fitch Ratings.

California has had the lowest credit rating among all 50 states for most of the last year. The low rating could cost taxpayers millions of dollars in higher interest payments on the billions of dollars the state will likely need to borrow in the coming months.

--AP