Faced with a ballooning deficit and a clear signal that voters won’t pay more to fix it, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger released a budget plan Tuesday that would eliminate welfare, drop 1 million poor children from health insurance, cut off new grants for college students and shut down 80 percent of state parks.

In a state that long has prided itself on its social safety net, it could well go down in history as the most drastic reduction in social programs ever. And billions in further cuts will be unveiled later this week.

The governor’s proposal to whack an additional $5.5 billion from state programs stunned even longtime Capitol-watchers with its blunt force. Ending cash assistance for 1.3 million impoverished state residents, for example, would make California the only state with no welfare program.

“Every single first-world nation has a safety net program for children,” said Will Lightbourne, Santa Clara County’s social services director. “This would return us to the era of Dickens — you’d have to go back to the 19th century to find a comparable proposal.”

The governor’s office reiterated that the cuts were painful but unavoidable, with the proposed budget for the 2009-10 fiscal year already outdated before lawmakers even begin debate. Schwarzenegger’s finance team now says the deficit will grow to $24.3 billion by July 1, up from the previous $21.3 billion projected shortfall.

“The scope and the severity of this recession have forced us to put options on the table that would have been unthinkable just a few short months ago,” said H.D. Palmer, the state’s deputy director of finance.

Schwarzenegger had warned before last week’s special election that if voters did not approve a host of tax and budget-reform measures, stunning cuts to social services, education and other vital state programs would be necessary.

The deepest cuts

So, in the wake of the resounding “no” that came from a disillusioned electorate, he has held true to his promise and then some:

The budget proposal would eliminate vast swaths of programs, including CalWORKs — the welfare program serving more than 521,000 families who now receive $526 average monthly grants — and Healthy Families, which subsidizes health care for low-income children whose families don’t qualify for Medi-Cal. Those cuts would also cost the state billions in federal matching funds.

Medi-Cal coverage for dialysis and for breast and cervical cancer treatment for those over age 65 would be cut. Undocumented immigrants would lose nonemergency health care.

In the prisons, rehabilitation, education and vocational programs would be hacked. So would the sentences of nonviolent, non-serious offenders, who would go free a year early.

More than 200,000 college-bound students would lose some or all of their tuition assistance under the Cal Grant program. New grants for students to attend college would be eliminated, and existing grants would be reduced. All of that would come on top of $335 million in cuts for the University of California and California State University systems — which already have seen $415 million in cuts this year, forcing student fee increases.