Automatic Rollbacks May Not Cut Spending : Budget: Independent analysts believe it would be easy for the Legislature to circumvent the trigger mechanism.

Gov. George Deukmejian’s proposal for automatic cuts when the state is in danger of running a deficit is likely to be approved by the Legislature but may not achieve the governor’s goal of curbing spending on social and welfare programs, analysts and legislators said Friday.

Some Democratic lawmakers blasted the governor’s plan as a power ploy designed to decrease the Legislature’s authority over the budget and cut spending on Democratic-supported programs that help the poor, disabled, and aged.

“It sickens my stomach,” said Assemblyman John Vasconcellos (D-Santa Clara), chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. “It’s an abdication of the Legislature’s authority to protect poor people against a governor who has little regard for people in need of government services.”

On the other side, Republican lawmakers said the so-called trigger mechanism is necessary to control a state budget that is growing faster than revenues because of mandated increases such as the annual cost-of-living adjustments for welfare recipients.

“The trigger mechanism is a step in the right direction,” said Assemblyman Tom McClintock (R-Thousand Oaks). The automatic cuts are needed, he said, because “automatic increases programmed into the law combined with the lower Gann Limit due to Proposition 111 . . . are driving state expenditures up much faster than the ability of the public to pay for it.”

But independent analysts said that during any future budget crunch it would be easy for the Legislature to circumvent the automatic spending cuts through the same type of “smoke and mirror” budgeting that Congress uses to evade the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act, on which the governor’s proposal is modeled.

“The bottom line is that there is no such thing as an automatic trigger mechanism. It’s impossible,” said Rod Kiewiet, a Caltech political science professor who recently completed a study of the federal budget process. “The generic problem is that a majority-rule institution cannot bind itself to a future action. It can always be reversed by a majority in the future.”

Kiewiet compared the situation to a person who goes on a diet by locking the refrigerator and hiding the key. “But he knows where the key is. So has he really locked the refrigerator? I don’t think so.”

The bipartisan leadership of both houses came out in support of the “trigger mechanism” after meeting Friday with Deukmejian, who agreed to some crucial changes in the proposal.

Originally, Deukmejian wanted the cuts to be triggered by a finding from the director of finance--a gubernatorial appointee--that expenditures would exceed revenues during the next fiscal year. The governor wanted the cuts to be limited to health and social services, such as welfare and Medi-Cal.

After Democratic legislators balked at those proposals, the governor agreed that the bipartisan Commission on State Finance would activate the trigger mechanism and the cuts would be across the board.

Vasconcellos vowed not to support the trigger mechanism in any form, saying it would mean “the end of California as we know it.” But other Democratic leaders said they would go along with the plan in order to end the state’s record-breaking budget stalemate.

“This gives the governor some face-saving crumb that may help the situation a little,” said Sen. Alfred E. Alquist (D-San Jose), chairman of the Budget and Fiscal Review Committee.

The measure is necessary to avert “a constitutional crisis that would have resulted if the governor or Assembly Republicans held firm” in their refusal to compromise on tax increases, he said.

But Alquist didn’t think the trigger mechanism would curb state spending. “You can’t depend on it,” he said. “Congress is not finding the Gramm trigger to have any importance--it just stimulates more dialogue about the deficit.”