Any credit counselor will tell you that, if you have a debt problem, the first step is to stop digging the hole deeper. It's a lesson we hope voters apply to Proposition 55 in the March 2 election.

Prop. 55 would float $12.3 billion in bonds to upgrade and build new classrooms for K-12 schools and community colleges, the California State University and the University of California. Of the total, $10 billion would go to K-12 schools, $2.3 billion to higher education.

First, remember another proposal on the March 2 ballot: Proposition 57, which would float $15 billion in bonds mostly to cover the possibly illegal debts recalled Gov. Gray Davis and the Legislature enacted last year.

Total: $27.3 billion in new debt. That's incredible. Although we also oppose Prop. 57 (favoring budget cuts instead), at least it has the excuse that it is partly a kind of consolidation of past debt.

Prop. 55 has no such excuse. It would be purely new bonds to pay for new spending. The cost would be the $12.3 billion principal plus $12.4 billion in interest over 30 years. In other words, the cost will be double that of a pay-as-you-go system. Every year the repayment cost would be about $823 million.

Put another way, at a time when the budget still is not balanced, it would add another $823 million to the deficit.

It's worth remembering that California now has the worst state bond rating of any state in the union. Before we take on new debt, shouldn't that rating be repaired?

Proponents insist that the money is needed for badly needed repairs for schools. "Our kids deserve clean, safe classrooms if we expect them to succeed," according to the proponents' summary in the ballot pamphlet mailed to voters. "But many students are asked to learn in classrooms that are run-down and overcrowded."

"We know that the public school system is failing us," Lew Uhler, president of the National Tax-Limitation Committee, told us in response. He pointed out that 48 percent of students entering Cal State schools need remedial English lessons - showing they weren't taught adequately in the K-12 system. "Until they can get their act together, we should not provide more facilities for ill-educated children."

He added that class-reduction programs in recent years, which a recent Rand Corp. study showed did not improve student performance, are behind a great deal of the school- building expansion. And school construction costs are driven up by prevailing-wage laws (which mandate union pay scales) and the Field Act, which imposes costly building standards beyond those of the regular building code.

If the class-reduction and prevailing-wage laws and the Field Act were repealed, the cost of new school facilities would drop, making it more possible for schools to build on a pay-as-you-go basis.

Proponents also say that Prop. 55 won't raise taxes. True - not directly. But as the experience of recent years has shown us, too much spending leads to inevitable calls to raise taxes. The way to avoid that problem is to keep spending under control, in part by defeating irresponsible bonds, such as Prop. 55.

Prop. 55 is a bust-the-budget initiative that a state teetering toward bankruptcy just can't afford.

We recommend a no vote.