COLUMN RIGHT/ BILL JONES : Cut Welfare, Health to Solve Budget Crisis : The answer is not to ‘close loopholes’ (and raise taxes) but to restructure state spending.

This year’s budget process has been the most painful I have experienced in my 10 years in the Legislature. We are faced with billions of dollars in cuts--amounts so large that universities could close or whole state departments be eliminated without making a dent in the deficit.

As bad as the figures are, this crisis holds the kernel of an opportunity. We now have the chance to make lasting changes in the way the state spends taxpayers’ money--changes that voters have been urging us to make for a long time.

In 1978, the voters passed Proposition 13 to lower property taxes and keep them low. In 1979, they approved Proposition 4, which sought to keep state spending under control. Then, in 1990, they approved Proposition 140, letting the Legislature know it hadn’t been doing the job.

Unfortunately, voters who want to hold the line on spending seem to communicate only at election time. At the polls, they pass an initiative, reject a bond proposal or throw someone out of office.

Between elections, especially during budget negotiations, we hear only from people who want to spend more state dollars and to finance that spending by raising taxes.

Those of us who are fiscal conservatives have been unable to persuade the spend-and-tax junkies that our current deficit doesn’t stem from a lack of funds. California has a spending crisis, not a revenue crisis.

Taxpayers paid $43 billion into the General Fund during the last fiscal year--the highest amount in history--with revenues in 1992-93 anticipated to be at least the second-highest. These staggering amounts aren’t enough, however, because state spending is on autopilot and off course. For example, the number of people receiving tax-supported services, such as welfare and Medi-Cal, is soaring, with no relationship to how much money the state has in the bank.

Our No. 1 priority must be to regain control over how taxpayer dollars are spent. After decades of abandoning the reins to automatic cost-of-living increases, rigid mandates and inefficient programs, we can’t ignore the problem any longer.

The legislative power-shoppers, budget credit cards in hand, have reacted predictably. Rather than restructure spending, they have proposed closing loopholes (read: raising taxes) or rolling over the deficit into the next fiscal year (read: deficit spending). Their allies have flooded legislative offices with letters, pushing their own version of irresponsible spending. These people have obviously learned nothing from the federal government’s deficit experience.

In the midst of California’s devastating recession, they ignore ample evidence that a tax increase or deficit would create even further havoc with the economy.

The only way out is to prioritize. We need to ask ourselves, “What can we afford?” rather than, “What is our wish list?” No longer can we afford a welfare system that fosters dependency rather than responsibility or a state bureaucracy that regulates auctioneers and funeral directors.

Like any working family in California, we must balance our checkbook and make spending priorities accordingly.

We are issuing a call to California taxpayers who reject any suggestion of deficit spending or tax increases, to those who must balance their own spending priorities each month, and to those who have an additional mouth to feed and don’t receive an automatic cost-of-living increase in their salary. We desperately need them to take action, to cast their ballots now by calling, writing or faxing their legislators. They must lay down the law to their elected officials and demand that legislators get spending under control--or get thrown out on their ears.

California has the ability to “get lean,” just as American companies are doing to compete on the international market. But the system isn’t going to change without extraordinary pressure. That’s the focus of this budget debate.