Republican budget plans released this week would make thousands of people ineligible for subsidized health care, give young students a later start and cut monthly grants to the aged, blind and disabled.

Advocates for state programs say the proposals would make disease more common, delay 100,000 children's entry into kindergarten and force vulnerable people onto the streets.

"They're only looking at the dollars," said Angela Gilliard, a legislative advocate at the Western Center on Law and Poverty. "They're not connecting the lives of people to the dollars."

Republicans detect in such warnings a "Washington Monument" strategy -- the bureaucratic ploy of swaying public opinion by claiming that budget cuts will close the well-known landmark.

In fact, the cuts proposed by Assembly Republicans would only trim year-to-year spending by 4 percent, said Assemblyman John Campbell, R-Irvine, vice chair of the Assembly Budget Committee.

"In the greatest fiscal crisis this or any other state has faced, is a 4 percent cut unreasonable, is that draconian, is that something that will cause disaster?" he asked. "We don't think so."

But it's only fair to focus state services on the neediest, Republicans say, when the state finds itself in such a dire predicament. They note that their plan even rejects some cuts to health care and social services that were proposed by Gov. Gray Davis in January. Davis backed off from some of those proposals in his revised proposal in May.

"There were an awful lot of instances when we were more on the compassionate side of things than the governor," Campbell said.

The Republican plans would bridge the state's historic budget deficit by cuts to every major state operation, bookkeeping changes and some borrowing. Like the Democratic plans, they also rely on financing $10.7 billion of the deficit with bonds that would be paid back over several years.

Two days into the fiscal year, the partisan gridlock sparked action by Wall Street. Two credit-rating agencies -- Moody's Investors Service and Standard & Poor's -- put California on notice that it will downgrade its rating in coming months without a budget deal that brings spending in line with revenues.

Davis said Wednesday that Lehman Brothers informed the state's finance director, controller and treasurer that it will be unable to sell revenue anticipation notes -- a critical short-term supply of cash -- if a budget is not in place by July 15.

"Inaction is unacceptable," Davis said.

The Republican proposals have fueled the debate over whether the state can balance its books without raising taxes.

Republicans argue plenty of fiscal fat could be trimmed before asking taxpayers to open their wallets. Democrats say the budget already has been cut to the bare bones.

"Virtually all the big-ticket items (in the Republican plan) will cut real programs and real services for real Californians," said Jean Ross, executive director of the California Budget Project, a Sacramento-based policy research group.

This week, Assembly Republicans released a revised budget proposal in response to Democratic accusations that they didn't have a plan of their own. Senate Republicans on Wednesday were finishing some budget amendments totalling billions of dollars.

In health care, the Assembly Republicans would roll back eligibility for the Healthy Families program from 250 percent of the federal poverty level to 200 percent. They want to end the practice of providing 12 months of continuous Medi-Cal coverage to children, regardless of whether the parents become ineligible.

Together, those proposals would deny health care to more than half a million children, said Anthony Wright, executive director of Health Access, a statewide health care consumer coalition of 200 organizations.

Campbell said the Republican plan focused on cases in which people are ineligible for a service or defraud the state.

But Wright said that in many families, the parents become temporarily ineligible because of seasonal or sporadic work. "The children would be dropped," he said.

The Republican plan would reduce monthly grants to aged, blind and disabled people to the minimum required by the federal government, a reduction of some $50 a month, and suspend two cost-of-living increases.

Education advocates said the Republican plan would effectively cut school budgets by $550 million by counting subsidized child care as an education expense under Proposition 98. The 1988 initiative guarantees that a portion of state revenues go to K-12 schools and community colleges.

"This plan erodes the integrity of Proposition 98," said Brett McFadden, legislative advocate for the Association of California School Administrators.

He said it would be better for the Legislature to suspend Proposition 98.

"We'd rather be straight-up and honest about it than this back-door approach," McFadden said.

Treasurer Phil Angelides, a Democrat, called a Republican proposal to increase the age threshold for kindergartners "an embarrassment."

"What has it come to when one of the richest societies in history is talking about delaying the education of children?" he asked.

At the University of California, the Republican proposal for an unspecified cut of $400 million would be the equivalent of raising tuition $1,600 per semester and reducing new enrollments by 20,000, or 40 percent, spokesman Brad Hayward said. Cuts of that magnitude would seriously compromise what the University of California is able to do for the state," he said.

The Assembly is scheduled to take up the Republican plan Sunday.