It was a grim Gov. Linda Lingle who met with the news media this week to offer her plans for dealing with a state budget deficit that is headed toward the billion-dollar range.

Lingle outlined plans for nearly $700 million in takeaways from public workers in the form of mandatory furloughs, big trims in the Medicaid budget and yet another $162 million out of an already stretched education budget.

The governor, standing firm on a couple of bedrock political positions (no layoffs, no new taxes), left herself with little room. Since payroll makes up the vast bulk of the state's operating budget, that's where she set her sights.

As difficult as Hawai'i's situation is, it is still in relatively better shape than once-glossy California, which at the moment is close to bankruptcy; or Michigan, which is reeling from the collapse of the automobile industry. Consider, in California, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is proposing closure of most of the state's public parks, deep cuts to education and elimination of welfare-to-work programs and child healthcare programs.

So Hawai'i is not at that point, at least not yet. Still, the cuts and restrictions Lingle proposes will have an impact far beyond what they accomplish to balance the budget. The money not spent will, quite obviously, not circulate through the community.

Those state workers who face three unpaid days a month for the next two years will adjust their family budgets. It's a good bet that most of those workers were spending most of what they were collecting in pay. Thus, the entire economy will feel the $700 million hit.

In a bitter, but perhaps unavoidable turn of events, Lingle's response to a bad economic climate will ultimately make that climate even worse. Critics will say — indeed have already said — that it is cruel to balance the budget on the backs of school children and on healthcare for the poor.

But the way the budget is constructed, there is little by way of better options. To paraphrase Willy Sutton, the reason Lingle went to payroll, Medicaid and the schools is because that's where the money is.

On the big ticket item — the furloughs — there is some room for creativity. It is unclear whether Lingle has to negotiate the furlough program with the unions, but it would make sense to do so in a way that protects essential public services to the greatest extent possible. That might include "scattering" the furloughs to come on days workers would already be off on one of the state's many holidays.

In the end, state workers will have to agree that a furlough program, as painful as it is, is better than outright layoffs which, unhappily, are the other alternative.