So now we know what kind of budget the Republicans in the California Legislature have in mind.

The most conservative Republicans in the state, the ones who occupy the state Senate, have finally shown us why they resist the Democrats’ big, permanent tax increase proposal and the governor’s smaller, temporary one. Their answer: They want the state to borrow more.

The alternative budget the Republicans proposed over Labor Day weekend does not balance. Even after including $1.6 billion in new cuts, they can’t balance the books. And they have acknowledged that the cuts required to bring the budget back into the black without raising taxes are cuts that even they would not make.

Instead, they propose taking a $2 billion advance on earnings from an expanded state lottery, borrowing from the future players, and losers, in the California lotto game.

The Republicans, to their credit, also finally listed all the spending cuts they do support. A sample:

• Eliminate eligibility for thousands of poor people in the Medi-Cal health program.

• Cut grants to families on welfare by 5 percent.

• Reduce the state’s share of responsibility for wages paid to workers who care for the elderly and disabled in their homes.

“We’ve done this in a way to defend the taxpayer and still be responsible,” Senate Minority Leader Dave Cogdill, R-Fresno, said.

But over the long term, the Republican budget is actually less fiscally responsible than either Schwarzenegger’s plan or the one backed by the Legislature’s Democratic leaders.

It might be balanced, on paper, for one year. But that would be only with the help of the borrowed money.

Schwarzenegger’s plan — relying on a temporary tax hike and $10 billion in accelerated lottery payments — also pushes the problem into the future. But it does work for at least two years longer than the Republicans’, giving the state’s economy three years to start growing again and giving the Legislature time to figure its way out of this mess. The Democrats’ plan, with permanent tax increases on high-income earners and business, would probably keep the budget balanced the longest, at least until the next economic downturn.

Still, the Republicans have done the people of California a service by releasing their own proposal. For one thing, they’ve conceded that not even they can cut their way out of this budget deficit. And they’ve shown us what the cuts they do support look like.

Now we can compare their approach to the ones advocated by the governor and the Democrats. And perhaps we can have a conversation about the kind of state government we want.

Lawmakers and the governor can continue to use borrowing and shifts and gimmicks to hobble along from one year to the next, dragging the problem behind them like a fiscal ball and chain.

Or they can be honest and raise the taxes needed to pay for the services that a large majority of the Legislature, the governor and, presumably, the people of the state desire.

Even with every cut the Republicans have proposed, spending still exceeds the state government’s revenues from the current tax structure by billions of dollars a year.

If that doesn’t make it obvious that something has to give, nothing will.

(Weintraub writes for the Sacramento Bee.)