As Gov. Linda Lingle and the Legislature face up to the budget deficit over the next month, it'll likely come down to a balancing act between job cuts that put the burden on public workers and tax increases that put the load on the general public.

After previously urging that every option be left on the table, Lingle now says she won't agree to tax increases or layoffs of state employees.

That puts the Republican governor in conflict with Democratic legislators, who included 370 job cuts and kept open the option for tax increases in the preliminary budget the House sent to the Senate.

Lingle has offered few specifics on what she wants to do, and lawmakers say the few ideas she has put forth to avoid tax increases and layoffs are based on unrealistic assumptions.

The pressure increased after the Council on Revenues lopped another $260 million off its estimate of what the state will have to spend from 2009-2011, creating a record deficit of more than $900 million that could double in subsequent years.

Still alive in the Legislature are bills that would increase income taxes, the general excise tax and the hotel room tax.

Another measure would have the state commandeer the counties' share of the hotel tax for six years, which could force counties to raise property taxes or lay off their workers.

Lingle says tax increases would weaken the economy by further depleting consumer buying power, while state layoffs would only throw more workers into the unemployment pool.

The governor says she's open to reduced pay and hours for public workers to avoid layoffs, but that would require agreements with unions that say they would resist.

Lingle is essentially proposing to continue the "warm bodies" policy started in the Ariyoshi administration to rule out state layoffs in rough economic times.

The problem is that unlike private businesses, which add employees when the economy is strong and reduce workforce when business is weak, the state adds employees in good times but seldom cuts back in bad times.

As a result, it becomes increasingly difficult to balance the budget with each recession, and public services end up prioritized according to where the employees are instead of where the need is.

It's certainly not fair for public workers to bear more than their fair share of the brunt of balancing the budget.

But neither is it fair for taxpayers, who have suffered layoffs, pay cuts, and reduced hours in their own jobs, to have to pay disproportionately more in taxes and fees so public workers can be spared sharing any of the pain.

Legislators are setting a poor example of sharing the sacrifice by taking 36 percent pay raises this year, making any tax increases they propose grate even more with constituents who have tightened their own belts.

State layoffs are complicated by civil service and collective bargaining rules that allow furloughed employees to bump down to lesser paying positions while keeping the higher salaries from their old jobs.

Former Gov. Ben Cayetano attempted in the last recession to end the "warm bodies" policy and furlough 1,600 state workers, only to end up with 150 layoffs that saved a minuscule amount after all the bumping was done.

And restrictions on transferring employees to comparable jobs elsewhere in the government make it difficult to efficiently use attrition to reduce the workforce.

If Lingle and the Legislature continue the "warm bodies" policy, they should at least bargain to trade no-layoff promises for more flexible work rules that would make it easier to manage future budget deficits.

David Shapiro, a veteran Hawai'i journalist, can be reached by e-mail at dave@volcanicash.net. His columns are archived at www.volcanicash.net. Read his daily blog at blogs.honoluluadvertiser.com.