AS THE GOVERNOR'S waste-hunting commission started winding down its work, a legislative staffer observed that it is in grave danger of collapsing under the weight of its multiple recommendations.

If it wants to make any difference, the insightful employee said, the Management, Accountability and Performance Commission needs to whittle its list down to five or six big-dollar recommendations, because legislators simply will not sort through the dozens or perhaps hundreds of proposals it is considering.

Unfortunately, that is probably an accurate assessment of the way most of our legislators have approached their jobs. And like many other aspects of the way things have always been done in South Carolina government, it simply must change.

Legislators have a tendency to reject small budget cuts; they say there's no point in, say, eliminating a single management position for a savings of $70,000, because it doesn't make a dent in a $500 million deficit.

It's true that we have worked ourselves into a situation in which we must come up with either massive program cuts or tax increases just to stay afloat. While that $500 million deficit for next year is a worst-case scenario, it is a possibility. But it's also true that 100 cuts or changes of $1 million each -- or 1,000 cuts of $100,000 each -- save the state just as much money as one change that saves $100 million.

Short of a $500 million tax increase, there is not a way to come up with that kind of cash in one simple step, because the money is spread around too much. Only 20 state agencies received more than $25 million in this year's state budget. So even slashing another 10 percent off most agencies -- which is getting close to the point of making them so underfunded and unable to do their jobs that it's a waste of money to operate them at all -- wouldn't solve the problem.

Oh, it is theoretically possible to slash $500 million in a few short steps. But not through simple efficiency measures. Shutting down the Department of Public Safety (Highway Patrol) and the Department of Juvenile Justice (and setting all the inmates free) and the courts and DHEC would buy you $200 million. Shuttering the Department of Corrections and the Department of Mental Health -- and putting all the inmates and patients out on the street -- would save $430 million. Or you could save the entire half a billion dollars by shutting down those 70 agencies that receive less than $25 million (the Election Commission, most of the state's colleges, the governor's office, the Legislature, the probation department, the State Museum, ETV and so on). But that is not realistic; nor should it be.

Which is to say that legislators are going to have to consider more than five or six recommendations.

Legislators, through their management of the state budget, have demanded that state employees work harder. They have no less of an obligation themselves. The difference is that for legislators, this doesn't necessarily mean doing twice as much work as they used to. While for many working harder starts with spending more time getting to know how the government works and sorting through those hundreds of cost-cutting proposals, what it ultimately means is making difficult decisions. It means reaching across partisan divides, dropping the campaign rhetoric and coming to agreements on tax or spending changes that will get our state's fiscal house back in order.