Tribune Staff

As expected, the $49.2 billion, two-year budget Gov. Bob Taft proposed Monday prompted a lot more frowns than smiles.

Now that he has made his pitch, the governor is going to have a difficult time selling his record budget to legislators -- both Republicans and Democrats. After all, it is difficult to justify spending more than $4 billion more than the last two-year cycle when, all along, you have been telling everybody the state has revenue problems.

And, under Taft's proposal,

a lot more stand to lose than win.

Hunters and anglers, for example, would see a $4 hike for fishing and hunting licenses, which would go from $15 to $19 under Taft's proposal. Fees would increase from $8 to $10 for youth hunters under 16 and seniors 66 and older would begin paying a $10 fee.

Smokers and drinkers would lose as Taft's budget assumes lawmakers will raise state taxes on cigarettes to $1 a pack from the current 55 cents, and double the state alcohol tax to 28 cents for a 12-ounce beer and to $6.76 for a gallon of liquor.

The budget freezes state workers' salaries and does not provide money for rising health care costs, which will hurt all state employees. It also eliminates employee health centers that provide temporary care for illnesses, emergency care and first aid.

Under Taft's plan, about 30,000 of 400,000 parents who became eligible for Medicaid benefits when a state program for poor families began in July 2000 would be ineligible for any coverage. They could lose Medicaid benefits as soon as October. Children on Medicaid would not be affected.

We can only see a few winners in Taft's budget, which includes substance abusers (Taft proposes increasing funding to the Department of Alcohol and Drug Addiction Services 10 percent each of the two years) and students (Taft's proposal increases basic aid to schoolchildren to $5,088 per student per year, and would increase basic tuition aid for college students.

With little to gain and a lot to lose, Taft and lawmakers need to take a close, hard look at the budget before diving into it face first. We do not doubt the state needs to look at cuts and increases to balance the budget, but a mistake now can only lead to future problems.