The state’s cash-strapped budget and the possibility of even more cuts in spending on state-funded or subsidized programs were the focus of lawmakers at a Carroll County Chamber of Commerce breakfast Thursday.

State Sens. Bill Hamrick, R-Carrollton, and Mitch Seabaugh, R-Sharpsburg, and Reps. Mark Butler, R-Carrollton, and Randy Nix, R-LaGrange, addressed more than 100 chamber members at a membership breakfast at the University of West Georgia and discussed how they are working to keep a balanced budget at the state level without having to impose more taxes at a time when many in the districts they serve are trying to cope financially with the current economic downturn.

State Rep. Tim Bearden, R-Villa Rica, was on official government business and was not in attendance.

Butler said one of the main duties of the state’s legislative body is to create a balanced budget.

“It’s been rough,” he said.

Butler said he is working to protect core services such as education, health care and public safety in balancing the budget and is opposed to raising taxes.

“If we don’t have it, we don’t spend it,” he said.

Butler said $2.6 billion, which is more than 12 percent of the state’s operating budget, was trimmed during the legislative cycle. More cuts may have to be made to keep the budget balanced before the economy recovers.

Hamrick said that between July 2008 and July 2009, the state saw potentially its largest one-year drop in revenue in history.

“Currently, we are doing things we have to do, and the principle we are acting on is not to raise taxes on a state level,” he said. “Based on that core principle, you keep doing what you have to do.”

Seabaugh said one way to help reduce wasteful spending has been to look at program-based budgeting to make sure the money being spent is going toward a particular project, and to look at cutting services that are unnecessary.

The senator said that when the state began checking into recipients of certain programs that were eligible, based on requirements such as income levels, the state saw a 15 percent drop in PeachCare health insurance for children after finding recipients who exceeded the family-income requirement had been receiving the state-funded services.

Nix said cuts in the budget should not be made across the board. Instead, lawmakers need to address specific areas.

Butler said Georgia continues to see growth. Its budget, he said, is already stretched thin despite the population growth.

“If you compare our budget, we are 49th in spending per capita,” he said. “Texas is 50th. That’s $3,700 per person. When we have to make these big cuts, it touches lives.”

The legislators said a special session might be necessary if the revenues fall short before a recovery is in sight.