If only, Democrats keep thinking as the state budget deadlock continues. If only we could pass a budget with a mere simple majority vote in the Legislature, we’d have no problems.

And yes, legislative Democrats would not have problems. Nor would some of the interest groups whose backs they scratch in return for campaign scratch.

If they had their unfettered way, the ultra-liberals now controlling the big Democratic legislative majorities in the Assembly and Senate would have raised several taxes by now — Californians would be paying new taxes on legal services, light bulbs, bullets and disposable diapers, plus higher taxes on cigarettes, cocktails and very likely an increased sales tax on just about everything.

But they haven’t had their way, and in the end they won’t get everything they want. That’s because the GOP still controls slightly more than one-third of the seats in both legislative houses and California’s state constitution requires a two-thirds vote in each house to pass a budget.

Republicans have refused all year to contribute their needed votes for any new taxes, even though the biggest tax increases ever were imposed while Republican Pete Wilson was governor during the last serious budget crunch, in the early 1990s. If that be hypocrisy, they essentially say, so be it.

The result so far is a stalemate that’s already extended well beyond the June 30 legal deadline for adopting a budget.

Now the interest groups with the most to gain from pure Democratic control of the budget process want to end the two-thirds requirement via an initiative they seek to qualify for the March 4 primary election ballot.

“We are completely frustrated with the budget process,” Anthony Wright, executive director of the Health Access group which pushes affordable health care, told a reporter. “It is mired in gridlock, and there is a lack of accountability for the lack of choices being made.”

Health Access is part of a coalition pushing the initiative, led by the Service Employees International Union (read, government employees who would rather have higher taxes than fewer jobs or lowered pay). The biggest change the so-called Budget Accountability Act would make is a 55 percent requirement for budget passage. The measure would also ban legislator vacations or work on other bills when the budget has not been passed on time. Lawmakers would no longer be paid during “overtime” periods, nor would they be able to push other bills until they OK a spending plan.

This measure is a blueprint for efficiency so long as one party — currently the Democrats — controls well over 55 percent of legislative seats. It comes close to guaranteeing a rubber-stamp vote on all financial matters whenever one-party holds both a large legislative majority and the governor’s office.

So this would lead to easy budgeting agreements today, with Democratic priorities ruling in almost every case. In the current deficit-plagued scene, it would likely mean many new taxes and far fewer cuts in either jobs or services than now seem likely to emerge from the haggling.

Democrats who back the 55 percent vote might be shortsighted. While they very probably will continue dominating the Legislature until 2012, a new reapportionment plan might change things substantially after that.

What happens if and when a Republican governor takes office with a large legislative majority? Democrats would have little chance to push the social programs so integral to their party’s identity. They would no longer have a voice in many of the state’s most critical decisions, the very same plight the 55 percent plan would inflict on Republicans today.

And the political pendulum will surely swing back to the right in California sometime, if only because things never stay the same and term limits have reduced the power of incumbency.

In short, any proposed lowering of the budget vote threshold might be good for Democrats and their friends today, but prove disastrous for them later on.

For those who live by the sword in politics often die by the sword. California Republicans already know this well. Their strong backing of the 1994 Proposition 187, with its anti-illegal immigrant aims, led to Wilson’s easy re-election that year. But it also spurred massive numbers of citizenship applications, activated the long-dormant Latino vote and has ensured extreme minority status for the GOP for almost 10 years.

All of which makes the 55 percent budget vote a bad idea not just for both parties but for all Californians.