UPDATE by Brian: You can listen live to Which Way LA live here and then get the archives here or at iTunes. Robert’s going to be on iTunes! I’m excited to hear what Robert has to say.

I will be on Warren Olney’s show on KCRW 89.9 at 7pm tonight to discuss the latest news from the state budget front. The California Legislative Analyst, Elizabeth Hill, has announced that California now faces a $16 billion budget deficit. In her press conference, as reported by the Sacramento Bee, she sharply criticized Arnold Schwarzenegger’s approach to the budget:

In a critical look at Schwarzenegger’s spending proposal, Hill called his administration’s budget-balancing approach “flawed” because it fails to prioritize state programs.

“We recommend the Legislature reject the administration’s across-the-board (cutting) approach,” the report said.

The report lays out an alternative budget that proposes to eliminate nonessential state programs, shift programs to local control and reduce school funding by less than the $4.3 billion the governor suggested. It also recommends closing tax loopholes to add revenue in a “reasonable manner.”

As an impartial analyst, Hill cannot say what is obvious to us all – the bill for 30 years of frivolous tax cuts, such as giving wealthy yacht owners a tax break while threatening to close parks and fire teachers, has come due. Republicans insist on cutting core services of our government, preferring to make it difficult to get a decent education, kicking sick children off of health care coverage, and abandoning our natural heritage instead of making sure all Californians are paying their fair share.

As we enter what is likely to be a nasty recession, the last thing this state should be doing is destroying the kinds of public services essential to a modern society and a developed, robust economy. It is long past time for us to end the structural revenue deficit that has produced this recurring crisis, from the wasteful elimination of $5 billion in VLF revenue at the beginning of Arnold’s term to the various tax loopholes and favoritisms that have plagued us since 1978. California is at a crossroads – will we rise to the occasion, or stand by while Republicans destroy what remains of the California dream?

Arnold has tried to promote a 10% across the board budget cut as the cornerstone of his plan to address the $14 billion deficit – but as Judy Lin noted in a recent SacBee article, he cannot do that:

But while such efforts have been talked about in the past, budget experts say straight reductions are impossible in a world filled with legal, financial and political obstacles.

“Can he get across-the-board cuts comprehensively? No,” said Jean Ross, executive director of the California Budget Project, a nonpartisan group that advocates for poor and middle-class families. Not only does the state have to comply with various laws and court orders, it has debts to pay, paychecks to deliver, and everything from schools to prisons to maintain.

“I could go on and on and on,” Ross added.

The Schwarzenegger administration has pledged to spread cuts in a way that “no department shoulders a disproportionate share,” said finance spokesman H.D. Palmer.

Yet the governor’s aversion to taxes has left him little choice but to make cuts that are certain to attract political resistance on multiple fronts, from Democrats who control the Legislature to powerful interest groups such as the teachers and the prison officers union.

So what IS likely to face cuts when Arnold’s proposals are released next week? Education and health care.

A 10% cut to education budgets would require suspension of Prop 98, and would have a devastating effect on schools in the middle of the school year. Here I disagree with Judy Lin, the author of the SacBee article, who claims that the cuts to education would affect things like school buses and field trips – a 10% cut WILL mean cuts in classes and layoffs of teachers. There’s not that much flexibility in the budgets of most K-12 districts, certainly not in higher ed.

As to health care, Hanh Quach of Health Access California explains what a 10% cut would mean:

• A 10% cut in Medi-Cal eligibility would mean denying coverage to 680,000 of the 6.8 million Californians on Medi-Cal–largely low-income children, parents, seniors, and people with disabilities.

• A 10% cut in reimbursement rates in Medi-Cal would be hard, given that Medi-Cal has one of the lowest rates in the nation already (it’s one of the things we are trying to fix with health care reform).

• A 10% cut in benefits would mean having to deny millions of people key services. In the previous budget crises, proposals called for denying coverage for a range of benefits in Medi-Cal, including coverage for prosthetic limbs, medical equipment like asthma inhalers and diabetic test strips, and durable medical equipment like wheelchairs.

Given the likelihood of cuts being disproportionately visited on health and education, things that Californians have repeatedly demonstrated their support for protecting, it seems that Democrats have a strong opening to contest Arnold’s entire approach to the budget.

More importantly, Arnold is trying to reopen the current budget. Whereas in the summer Democrats were under pressure to get a budget done and ensure that schools and health care got the funding they needed, there is no such pressure now. Democrats can delay until July if they like and these vital public services and the Californians who depend on them will be spared. Dems are in the driver’s seat here, as long as they resist the temptation to agree to dramatic cuts so as to not jeopardize Prop 93’s chances.

What this also makes clearer is that spending cuts are not the answer – we MUST seek a revenue solution to this ongoing budget problem.