With Tuesday night’s propositions about as successful as Jon and Kate’s marriage these days, and going down harder than, say, Manny Pacquiao’s latest victim, it’s time to consider what’s next.

Another circus in Sacramento with lawmakers going Freddy Krueger on the budget? (Mark Dustin’s picture above from last year’s Orange County Fair seemed appropriate given the threat to sell the fairgrounds to help cover the state’s debt. In metaphorical terms, just imagine the clown is a state lawmaker trying to punt the problem to voters).

Or is something even more dramatic in the works? The Democrats enacting a simple majority to pass budgets, thereby locking out the Republicans whose only clout now is the fact that the Dems need a two-thirds majority to pass the spending plan.

Or how about this? A proposition that would change how we finance government, a dismantling of Proposition 13 and a shift back to higher property taxes? I kind of doubt that, but you never know. Clearly what’s happening now ain’t working and something big has to happen.

Did you know that even if voters approved tonight’s propositions we still faced a $15-billion deficit instead of the projected $21-billion hole? Oh well, what’s a few billion here and there at this point?

We’re in trouble, folks. We’ll be out of cash by July and something’s got to give. It’s hard for me to imagine gouging $21 billion out of the budget without some real pain. Try brain surgery without anesthetic if you’re looking for a parallel.

“The chickens have come home to roost,” says Orange County GOP chief Scott Baugh. “The voters in California are not fooled by the deceit of tax increases masquerading as spending caps. It is time to make substantive spending cuts to put our budget expenditures in line with our revenues.”

Along those same lines, Sen. Tom Harman made good, common sense when I talked to him tonight. He simply says we can’t spend what we don’t have so we’ll just have to cut. You and I do that whenever we run into financial trouble. We don’t have the luxury of raising taxes. But he didn’t want to predict where the cuts would come from or speculate where lawmakers should take a hatchet to the budget. I don’t blame him. He couldn’t know at this point and, besides, he’s running for attorney general so why step in it by popping off with proposals that could be blown out of proportion by an opponent. (Yes, that’s official. Harman is the lone GOP candidate for attorney general).

Chuck DeVore, though, who’s also running for statewide office to unseat U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer, isn’t shy on the specifics. He’s again touting his plan for off-shore slant oil drilling in that oil belt from Huntington Beach to Point Conception. He argues that with collateral like that the state could borrow $5.5 billion right now. It’s tough for just about everyone to borrow cash, but “when you have real collateral like that, believe me, the money will show up,” DeVore argued.

Californians, however, have fought off-shore drilling since the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill. Will they change their minds as memories of that fade and they see deep cuts in public services?

As for other potential solutions, DeVore and Harman said they were open to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposal to sell the Orange County fairgrounds. Tran’s pretty much against it.

“I still haven’t heard a good or persuasive reason why we want to sell a very valuable piece of real estate in the heart of Orange County for a one-time deal to balance the budget for which the sale itself will only yield a small amount of money compared to the problem we’re facing,” Tran said.

“I’m not saying reflexively no to everything; I’m saying let’s look at everything,” DeVore said, adding he has proposed selling the Los Angeles Coliseum (the state owns one-third of it). “If you sold that to an entity like USC they would invest in it and it would be a big economic boost to the area as well.”

The same would have to happen in Orange County for DeVore and Harman to support a sell-off. Obviously, the new owner would have to make sure the land is used in much the same way and the annual county fair would have to be preserved.

Orange County Democratic Chairman Frank Barbaro might have put it best when he discussed the propositions before the polls closed. He figured they would all get shot down, but even if they succeeded it wouldn’t be good medicine.

“There is no easy answer, no comfortable place we can ever land on this. It’s just reality and reality bites,” Barbaro said.

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