COLUMN RIGHT : Only a Tax Cut Will Slay Our Fiscal Monster : The state’s terrifying new budget projections may scare away more income producers.

Imagine how Hollywood would handle it: “Just When You Thought It Was Safe To Count Your Money . . . Budget Crisis II!” Coming soon from your state government, a creature that has more lives than Frankenstein’s monster.

After “solving” the $14.3-billion budget deficit, the largest in California history, with tax increases and some spending cuts, the governor and the Legislature now face the second largest deficit in the state’s history--$5 billion and counting. Sorry, Jack, the taxman’s back!

The Department of Finance issued a report last week that shows things will only get worse.

California’s population is growing, but the bulk of the increase is made up of people who tend to use government services, such as the young and immigrants.

While the state is witnessing an overall growth in population, many people are leaving. The Finance Department study says that those on their way out are the producers, the taxpayers.

The report projects that in the year 2000 our state will have 2.02 taxpayers paying for every public-school student, down from the current ratio of 2.63 to 1. Each recipient of Aid to Families with Dependent Children is helped by 6.94 taxpayers today. In less than 10 years, only 2.94 taxpayers will be funding each recipient.

The report conjectures that the state’s budget deficit at the turn of the century will be a whopping $20 billion in a budget of $105 billion, nearly twice today’s budget. No projection is included for local government budgets. However, it is clear that they will be in the same boat, going down in a sea of red ink with too few taxpayer life preservers to save them.

The weapon suggested by the Finance Department to slay this resurrected monster is for California business to grow and create more jobs. Easier said than done, considering that many in the business community are prepared to abandon California. One in four companies is contemplating leaving the state, up from one in seven last year, according to a current survey of business leaders belonging to the Business Roundtable.

In the early 1970s, Seattle, in the midst of an economic slowdown, displayed billboards showing a single hanging light bulb with pull chain and a message: Will the last one out of Seattle please turn out the light. The California Chamber of Commerce may want to start a similar campaign here.

So, what do we do?

There are a number of things we can do, starting with--and don’t stop me if you’ve heard this one--tax cuts.

Business leaders list the poor tax climate as a major reason to look for greener pastures--greener, as in keeping more money in the business for expansion. But it is not only business that needs money.

Nothing perks up consumer confidence more than money in the shopper’s pocket. California consumers cannot be very confident or very eager to spend, given their increased tax burden. According to the non-partisan, Washington-based Tax Foundation, California’s per-capita state tax burden jumped about $220 per person to $1,679 in 1991, which vaulted California in one year from ninth on the list of comparative state tax burdens to fifth.

If taxes are cut, what will happen to the people who rely on public services supported by tax dollars? As Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell said recently, the best welfare program is a job. We must stimulate the economy and create those jobs, and a tax cut is a way to do it.

While cutting taxes could be the silver bullet needed to destroy the creature, it wouldn’t hurt to also drive a stake through the fiend’s heart. Additional remedies will be needed. California’s large and powerful congressional delegation must help restrict federal mandates so that California and other states can manage their own problems. Overregulated, unproductive programs such as workers’ compensation must be revamped.

As with the monsters in the movies, we can never be sure we’ve killed this creature. The spenders will continue to try and chop it out of the ice or sew it back together. But if we don’t do a credible job of dealing with the monster in Budget Crisis II, Part III may play to an empty hall, because the audience to pay for it will simply have walked away.